#puck was my first ever fictional crush i was so obsessed with him

[alexanaraxadel]

every day this app surprises me anew because what do you mean there's an active sisters grimm fandom in the year of our lord 2024. *banging on the walls* LET ME IN

[thenightling]

My Fictional Character obsessions as depicted in gifs

My obsessions from age ten onward as depicted in gifs.  Some of these characters have alternated in cycles over the years.  The ones with the * next to them are ones that have stood the test of time or are particularly strong obsessions. I am not posting them in a particular order, that would take too long to sort out and may change depending on my mood, however the current strongest obsession is at the bottom.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my fictional character obsessions through the years...  Or as Tumblr calls them... My “Garbage children.”

Note: I know only some of them count as “garbage children.”   So please don’t be offended that I may have called your favorite character a garbage child.

Rumplestiltskin as depicted in the show Once Upon a Time, particularly seasons 1 through 3.  

*Loki from Norse mythology and Marvel comics.  Tom Hiddleston is a great actor but I felt I should note that the MCU version is slightly disappointing, I wish they wouldn’t downplay the magick and try to pass them off as “alien.”

*Dracula.  There are many depictions of Dracula that I am fond of / obsessed with.   Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula books for example, The Frank Wildhorn Dracula musical, and a few movie and TV versions.  

I love the 90s Dracula TV series even though he’s blond in that (not to be confused with the awful NBC show version from the twenty teens) but I have no Gifs of the 90s one.  Nor do I have any gifs of Rudolf Martin as Dracula in Buffy or Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula though I love that one.  But here’s the most recent version to feed my obsession.  Dracula of Castlevania (The Netflix series).   Look at that Adorkable vampire!

*Jack Skellington of Nightmare before Christmas was one of my first truly all-consuming obsessions.  I played the cassette of the soundtrack to death.  I had a shelf of the toys (which were actually rare in the early 90s).  I became fixated on Danny Elfman’s singing voice as well as the gorgeous and haunting visuals.  

Sally, who helped kindle my first Frankenstein obsession because until then I had never seen an intelligent Frankenstein monster.  I hadn’t yet learned that in the original novel he was articulate (once he learned how to speak) and intelligent, and did not have a flat head or neck bolts. Sally and later The Bride (1985 movie) eventually got me to read the novel and pointed me in the right direction.

The ORIGINAL Peter Vincent from Fright Night, as played by Roddy McDowell.   I loved his character growth.  I loved watching him go from cowardly pretender to being the hero he always pretended to be and still having that B movie cheese to him.   Peter Vincent is my favorite vampire hunter.  Named after two of my favorite horror movie actors.  Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. 

Lestat.  Yes, I went through an Anne Rice obsession in my teens.  What 90s teenager didn’t?

The Dresden Files TV series, particularly Bob The Ghost AKA Hrothbert of Bainbridge as played by Broadway great, Terrence Mann.  Though short lived I loved that snarky ghost and this introduced me to the book series.  It was also the first TV series I enjoyed after my mother passed away so it has a special bittersweet place in my heart.

Another ghost character I love but I have no picture for him is Captain Gregg from the novel, movie, and TV show The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.   And Patrick Stewart as The Canterville Ghost from 1995 (as well as the original Oscar Wilde Story).  

Jareth from Labyrinth (and David Bowie).  Does he need an explanation?

Morbius from Marvel comics.  Because I just loved that emo SOB.

Nick on Forever Knight.  I went through an emo vampire phase in the 90s, okay...

The Doctor on Doctor Who

Methos from Highlander the series.  Highlander the series was a LOT better than people give it credit for.  And Methos was the first fictional character with a truly dark past I had ever seen, who mostly became a decent person after years of penance and self analysis.  It was through Highlander that I finally saw fiction and characters with shades of grey and realized things aren’t always black and white.   When they revealed Methos’ dark past I was so worried it was an excuse to kill him off and show that he was secretly evil all along but no. They didn’t do that.   Highlander taught me just how much people CAN change.   And it also taught me a lot about history and inspired me to be curious about our world and its past.   (It also often helped me with Social Studies tests.)  

Frank Langella as Dracula.

Faust from Goethe’s Faust.  (The 1926 silent film is the most faithful adaptation and actually covers Faust and Faust Part 2.  Most adaptations leave out Part 2).

Thomas Jerome Newton from The Man who fell to Earth.  Movie and novel by Walter Tevis.  Yes, depicted in the movie by David Bowie...  You’re lucky Bowie doesn’t turn up more in this list than he already does. 

Maleficent.  This one is kind of a guilty pleasure...  

As a long time book lover (One the first books I remember reading and loving was In a Dark Dark Room by Alvin Shwartz at age four...)  Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was the first Disney Princess I truly related to.  

Elisa and “Charlie” from The Shape of Water.

The Beast / Prince and Belle in Le Belle et la Bete original 1740 novel and the 2014 French film (even though that film isn’t all that faithful and Belle is a little cold, I love the visuals).

*Luke Goss as the Frankenstein Monster from the 2004 Hallmark mini-series of Frankenstein.  The most faithful adaptation of the novel to date.  Woefully under-rated.  Note, this spot is for the literary character too.

*Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream AND Disney’s Gargoyles.  I love that little bastard.

Mina and Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992 film)   

Emily The Corpse Bride. Also pretty much anything scored by Danny Elfman gets a slight nod here.  I love that man’s music.   It just catches me.   And I always can tell when it’s one of his scores (And no, I don’t think they all sound the same).   They’re just so beautiful and haunting.  

The Frankenstein Monster in Penny Dreadful.  The second most accurate to the novel. They even go the eyes right.

The Real Ghostbusters animated series.  Egon is what inspired me to want to study parapsychology.  I loved the nerd characters in shows like this.

Barnabas Collins in the original Dark Shadows. And 1990s version.   And Doctor Julia Hoffman, a surprisingly empowered character for a 1960s TV show, which is why it annoys me that more “modern” versions always make her sexually obsessed with Barnabas or a villain or both whereas in the original show she was Barnabas’ closest confidant and even the one Barnabas cried out for whenever he was in trouble.  (Admittedly it took hundreds of episodes for them to develop that dynamic but they got there).

Lucifer.  TV show incarnation and Sandman comics incarnation.

Cain and The House of Mystery (The House of Mystery counts as a character)

*Morpheus from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.  My current biggest obsession.  I’m making up for lost time.  This is something I SHOULD have been obsessed with in my teens.  I’m thirty-six-years-old and was thirty-five-years-old when I read it for the first time.  Why the Hell did no one describe this thing well to me back in the 90s!? Yes, Sandman started when I was only seven-years-old but it was most popular in the mid-90s and I would have probably loved it if I only really knew what it was all about.  Instead it was always “He’s like a Goth Jareth” (which almost worked) and “You’ll love Death!  She’s so cute!” (which totally didn’t work at all...)   Don’t protect me from spoilers, damn it!  Tell me about his character growth, the gorgeous artwork, the horror hosts residing in The Dreaming, tell me about the mythology and Shakespeare references, the lore, tell me about the ambiance, the atmosphere, the humor and pathos.  For God’s sake, I SHOULD have loved this thing a LONG time ago!     

You’d be amazed how hard it is to find a gif of Morpheus- he’s never had a film or TV adaptation but there are fan films! (The gif is from The Sandman fan film, 24 Hour Diner).

________________________________  

Honorable mentions:

Lydia from the Beetlejuice animated series (My mother’s best friend often compared me to her but I think I had a crush on the character...) 

Xena: Warrior Princess (when I figured out I’m not entirely straight).  Though I think I liked Gabrielle a little more than Xena, herself. 

The mermaid in She-Creature (2001 film, not the black and white film of the same name)

The Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt. 

Carmilla (vampire novella and Hammer horror film The Vampire Lovers)

Duncan Macleod from Highlander the series.

Various characters from Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV series) including Buffy herself, Giles and Spike.

Doctor Strange (And in relation to that, Doctor Craven from the Vincent Price movie The Raven from 1963.)

Bruce “David” Banner in The Incredible Hulk, particularly as depicted by Bill Bixby.  Though that was more of a role model personality type that I saw as a truly good man in a bad situation.  

Dorian Gray from the Picture of Dorian Gray 

Elisa in Disney’s Gargoyles but I idolized her more than obsessed about her. There is a difference.    

The reason those aren’t properly on the list is because those aren’t precisely obsessions but just characters I happened to really like a lot.