Developing crushes on fictional characters

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I'm sure we must have done this before, but I can't find it.

I was touched by Anna's admission on the Tove Jansson thread:

I often develop crushes on fictional characters, but Snuffkin is the one I fell for most deeply. My friend Dan still brings up the time I said in all seriousness I thought Snufkin would be good for me.

... cos I do this all the time, too. All Lorrie Moore heroines (but especially the literature professors who sing numbers from Broadway musicals in front of their class); Gus the Ghost from 'Barnaby'; Rebecca in the eponymous Barthelme story...

What about you?

(Keep this strictly to people in books - films, pop, etc make it entirely too easy)

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I once had a dream about Katje from Gravity's Rainbow, ergo I think I need help.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 13 March 2003 11:54 (twenty-two years ago)

some earlier replies

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 March 2003 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

victoria in Knut Hamsun's Victoria, she's the sort of parasol welding well-to-do girl I would've gone for if I was alive and a down at heel writer in the late 1800's.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 13 March 2003 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I feared on opening the older thread that it would contain the sordid details of my imaginary affair with Dick from the Famous Five, but that must be somewhere else...

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

She's a parasol-welder? Like Jennifer Beales in 'Flashdance'?!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

duncan in margaret atwood's "the edible woman", mmmm...i can see him being played by adrien brody in the film version!

― jeanne picot (jeanne picot), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:05 (twenty-two years ago)

They are too numerous to mention really, and very often don't bare any relation to how I feel about the book. Three fairly hardcore ones:

Snuffkin - my longest standing love. Around 14 years of adoring Snuffkin. I think I read more into him as I get older.

A minor character called Steve in a book for teenagers by Gene Kemp called The Room With No Windows. He had green hair and was a maths genius. Even though I grew out of the book years ago I still have a copy.

Doug Anderton in Jonathan Coe's The Rotters Club. I'm worried about this one. The beauty of finctional characters is that they never change, nor does their world alter around them, so all the reasons you found them wonderful are still in place. However, if, as hinted at, Mr Coe writes a sequel then Doug will grow up. The grown up Doug making a speech isn't fully fleshed out in The Rotters Club, but I'm not sure I'd like him.

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

if u luv me spel mi name korrekt!!

― it's snuFkin!! (mark s), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, yes. Be a free spirit and appreciate my wonky spelling. Look, on the other thread I even did it right in Finnish.
(I quite like that open road/ no ties thing)

― Anna (Anna), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Also: Good Fairy from 'At Swim Two Birds'.

"My correct name is Good Fairy, said the Good Fairy. I am a good fairy."

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:16 (twenty-two years ago)

JERRY IT'S A TRAP!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

What isn't?!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Where is the Far From Heaven thread?

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:22 (twenty-two years ago)

This is the thread where I ask Peter why he loved 'Far from Heaven'

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow. I do this all the time and always have, but in particular this set me off on a googling odyssey for Gillian Cross characters from the Demon Headmaster series of books – I had a kind of crush on Lloyd, but a much bigger one on Ian, who’s really a rather minor character in the ones I’ve read. It’s all to do with the way he looks up at Dinah when she’s sitting in a tree at one point. Hah what a fertile imagination I had then.

I’m now becoming inspired to read lots of Moomin books, but ph34r the looks I will get on the bus if I do so. I mean, I can cope with the slightly-too-bright covers of recent Diana Wynne Jones re-printings, but Moomins, however cool, are likely to get me committed to a home for uber-twee mental cases.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Disguise yer tweeness by reading them behind a noospaper.

― robster (robster), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Or another, larger, less twee book.

― robster (robster), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow Liz. Thanks for reminding me of my major Dinah crush aged 8.

― Richard Jones (scarne), Thursday, 13 March 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was in high school I had a crush on Howard Roarke. In college, any big penis character that Ewan McGregor played. Now I only lust for Spike on Buffy.

― Carey (Carey), Thursday, 13 March 2003 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Gus the Ghost from 'Barnaby'

whoa, i followed that link... a HOT ghost, indeed!

― Mandee, Thursday, 13 March 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

When I was a kid, I had a dream that Penny from Inspector Gadget saved me from drowning and I had a mild crush on her.

― Nick A. (Nick A.), Thursday, 13 March 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Vicki Austin, from Madeline L'Engle's Austin series. I also consider a fling with her little sister Susie.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 13 March 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha - I was just reminded of that Woody Allen story The Kugelmass Episode where the Professor transports himself into the novel to have a fling with Madame Bovary.

"Make sure and always get me into the book before page 120!"

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 13 March 2003 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

all my crushes are on fictional characters!

― minna (minna), Thursday, 13 March 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Playing Prospero in college wasn't helped by the fact that I really fancied the girl playing Miranda. Now that's a subtext for you. fancying fictional character made flesh arrgghh.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 13 March 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Incestuously fancying fictional characters made flesh as well.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 13 March 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Yup

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 13 March 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

It did feel odd.

― Matt (Matt), Thursday, 13 March 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I know someone with a crush on Richard II

― divya noguchi (divya), Thursday, 13 March 2003 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

why? because he's beautiful and lyrical -- I had a crush on the boy from the Bridge to Terabithia, Jude from Hardy's Jude the Obscure, and the cute actor from the movie didn't help.

― divya noguchi (divya), Thursday, 13 March 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm kind of tempted to invent my *own* fictional character to have a crush on, cuz then he gets to have a crush on me too, if I say so.

I'd be quite worried if I was entirely serious.

― ChristineSH (chrissie1068), Thursday, 13 March 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Rosalind in "As You Like It."

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 14 March 2003 05:49 (twenty-two years ago)

At various ages -- Leigh-Cheri in Tom Robbins's Still Life With Woodpecker, Eilonwy in the Chronicles of Prydein, and Batgirl (particularly Yvonne Craig, but the comics version too).

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 14 March 2003 06:24 (twenty-two years ago)

does ilx count?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 14 March 2003 06:28 (twenty-two years ago)

http://64.95.118.51/images/opti/57/03/1560972998-resized200.jpg

although both of them remind me of every bad teenage girlfriend i had rolled into one. or two, even.

― Wyndham Earl, Friday, 14 March 2003 06:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I TOTALLY second that one. though Enid is more like the bad girlfriend I WANTED to have.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 14 March 2003 07:23 (twenty-two years ago)

oh no mindmeld oh no!!

(i just saw this thread.)

― geeta (geeta), Friday, 14 March 2003 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Jett Rink in Edna Ferber's Giant.

Fuck the Benedicts. If Jett had wanted to get at Leslie through her daughters he could've done it no matter if her daughter was Luz or Rosie O'Donnell. Either way it would have been ROWR.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 14 March 2003 08:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Maggie from Love&Rockets.

― gaz (gaz), Friday, 14 March 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

i've had quite a few-its the personality that hooks you-my most recent one was Fred and George Weasley. lol they're just so mischievious!

― Mac T, Friday, 14 March 2003 13:59 (twenty-two years ago)

does ilx count?

I think so.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 14 March 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i totally own this thread. i own this thread so much it's embarrassing. almost every single book that i can still remember liking from, oh, fourth to eighth grade, plus a couple more, earned a crush under my loose definition.

― Maria (Maria), Saturday, 15 March 2003 01:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Valentine from Red, though I haven't watched it in yonks.

― Leee (Leee), Saturday, 15 March 2003 01:45 (twenty-two years ago)

two weeks pass...

Esther Greenwood

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 1 April 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

(I see the thread title and think, "I bet someone else has already beaten me to the 'you guys on this here board' comment, haven't they?" Naturally they have. Now I must go back to attempting to write, darn.)

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

BONANZA JELLYBEAN

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 16:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Emma Bovary, Nicola Six, Gina Tull

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 1 April 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

six months pass...

Oh I'm in love with Lionel Essrog from Motherless Brooklyn... The White-Castle devouring detective orphan with Tourettes..

― phil-two (phil-two), Friday, 17 October 2003 03:39 (twenty-one years ago)

this is an interesting crossover thread with what makes up the Hank Pym Sex Scandal thread...

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 17 October 2003 04:18 (twenty-one years ago)

painfully obscure answer:
Lilandra Nerimani

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

oh, for a minute there, i thought you were referring to the elf chick from Dragonlance. you were worrying me.

http://www.uncannyxmen.net/images/headshots/lilandra.jpg

somewhere, there's a hott version of the Shiar chick that Jim Lee did, but Google can't find it.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

http://members.aol.com/drg4/lilandrapic.jpg http://members.aol.com/drg4/lilandrapic.jpg
http://members.aol.com/feejscott/lila2.jpg http://members.aol.com/feejscott/lila2.jpg

These are better.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:42 (twenty-one years ago)

That I knew her last name gives you an idea of my level of devotion to the Shi'ar Imperiatrix.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Tesla Bombeck. Now there's a woman who's got it goin' awn.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Imperiatrix: Whips & Chains & Royal Edicts.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 17 October 2003 15:59 (twenty-one years ago)

"Kneel down and lick by encounter suited boot, you primitive monkey-oid barbarian."

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 17 October 2003 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone on the other thread mentioned Sally from the Encyclopedia Brown books, and I'm afraid I must second that. Also the girl from Paul Zindel's novel The Pigman, whose name I can't remember. Sigh.

― Prude (Prude), Friday, 17 October 2003 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

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