Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Character Information Gender: Female ♀ Status: Deceased Occupation: Writer First mentioned: "Simpsons Tall Tales"

Laura Ingalls Wilder was an American writer.

History

In a story told by the singing railroad hobo, the townspeople got Paul Bunyan drunk and dragged him out of town, which was the same way they got Laura Ingalls Wilder out of town.

When the Simpsons quit using electricity, Lisa said that reading by candlelight made her feel like Laura Ingalls in The Little House on the Prairie.

Appearances

• Episode – "Simpsons Tall Tales" (Paul Bunyan; mentioned)
• Comic story – Off the Grid (mentioned)

External links

• Laura Ingalls Wilder at Wikipedia

Authors

Douglas Adams • Mitch Albom • Steve Allen • Hans Christian Andersen • Maya Angelou • Isaac Asimov • Jane Austen • Bob Balaban • James Baldwin • Dave Barry • Lynda Barry • Joy Behar • Saul Bellow • Alfred Bester • Judy Blume • Patty Bouvier • Ray Bradbury • David Brenner • William F. Buckley • Milton Burkhart • Heloise Hodgeson Burwell • Albert Camus • Robert Caro • Lewis Carroll • Willa Cather • Michael Chabon • Agatha Christie • Tom Clancy • Marcia Clark • Arthur C. Clarke • Kelly Clarkson • Beverly Cleary • Leonard Cohen • Dame Edna • Geena Davis • Richard Dawkins • Honoré de Balzac • Simone de Beauvoir • Guillermo del Toro • Esme Delacroix • Charles Dickens • Emily Dickinson • Joan Didion • Fyodor Dostoevsky • Maureen Dowd • "Dummies" Author • Amelia Earhart • P. D. Eastman • Nora Ephron • Patrick Ewing • William Faulkner • Tina Fey • Helen Fielding • Guy Fieri • T. R. Francis • Anne Frank • Jonathan Franzen • Jonathan Frink • Neil Gaiman • Elizabeth Gilbert • Malcolm Gladwell • Whoopi Goldberg • Barry Goldwater • Doris Kearns Goodwin • Jacob Grimm • Wilhelm Grimm • John Grisham • Charles Grodin • Che Guevara • Tiffany Haddish • Sean Hannity • Tom Hayden • Lillian Hellman • Ernest Hemingway • Clarity Hoffman-Roth • L. Ron Hubbard • Jay Inslee • Shirley Jackson • Penn Jillette • James Joyce • Julian • Franz Kafka • Helen Keller • Caroline Kennedy • Jack Kerouac • Francis Scott Key • Karen Kilgariff • Stephen King • Rudyard Kipling • Delpho Krull • Padma Lakshmi • Lewis Lapham • Mell Lazarus • Kurt Loder • Karina Longworth • Greg Louganis • Ada Lovelace • Norman Mailer • Thomas Mann • George R. R. Martin • Richard Matheson • Jenny McCarthy • Phil McGraw • Herman Melville • Margaret Mitchell • Michael Moore • Toni Morrison • Ralph Nader • Mary Norton • Kevin O'Leary • Bill O'Reilly • Joyce Carol Oates • Boris Pasternak • James Patterson • Paula Paul • Karl Pilkington • Sylvia Plath • George Plimpton • Edgar Allan Poe • Fenton Pooltoy • Chaim Potok • Richard Pryor • Alexander Pushkin • Thomas Pynchon • Raffi • Ayn Rand • Robert Reich • Paul Reiser • Stark Richdale • Geraldo Rivera • Anthony Robbins • Fred Rogers • Al Roker • Mr. Roman • Isabella Rossellini • J. K. Rowling • Rufus • RuPaul • Barry Sadler • J. D. Salinger • Sheryl Sandberg • Jean-Paul Sartre • Paul Shaffer • George Bernard Shaw • Mary Shelley • Neil Simon • Bart Simpson • Homer Simpson • Isaac Bashevis Singer • Seymour Skinner • Kevin Smith • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn • Susan Sontag • Andrew Ross Sorkin • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Danielle Steel • Gertrude Stein • John Steinbeck • Professor Stein • Robert Louis Stevenson • Martha Stewart • Moe Szyslak • Amy Tan • Professor Thernstrom • Helen Thomas • Hunter S. Thompson • Leo Tolstoy • Ivan Turgenev • Mark Twain • John Updike • Leon Uris • Gus Van Sant • Jesse Ventura • Gore Vidal • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Kurt Vonnegut • Marilyn vos Savant • David Foster Wallace • Dr. Washburn • John Waters • Noah Webster • H. G. Wells • Eudora Welty • Ruth Westheimer • Oscar Wilde • Laura Ingalls Wilder • George Will • Tennessee Williams • Marianne Williamson • Tom Wolfe • Bob Woodward • Virginia Woolf

Real-world deceased characters

Actors Edward Andrews • Fatty Arbuckle • Fred Astaire • Lucille Ball • Vilma Bánky • Frances Bavier • Milton Berle • Bill Bixby • Humphrey Bogart • Ray Bolger • Sonny Bono • John Wilkes Booth • Shirley Booth • David Bowie • X. Brands • Yul Brynner • James Cagney • Eddie Cantor • Carol Channing • Charlie Chaplin • Maurice Chevalier • James Coburn • James Coco • Joseph Cotten • Bing Crosby • Bob Cummings • Rodney Dangerfield • Sammy Davis, Jr. • William Demarest • David Doyle • Margaret Dumont • Jimmy Durante • Chris Farley • Norman Fell • W. C. Fields • Larry Fine • Joe Flynn • Tennessee Ernie Ford • Bob Fosse • Clark Gable • Greta Garbo • Judy Garland • John Gielgud • Lillian Gish • Freeman Gosden • Betty Grable • Cary Grant • Arsenio Hall • Rex Harrison • Gabby Hayes • Isaac Hayes • Rita Hayworth • Audrey Hepburn • Charlton Heston • Curly Howard • Leslie Howard • Moe Howard • Shemp Howard • Rock Hudson • Boris Karloff • Danny Kaye • Grace Kelly • Deborah Kerr • Eartha Kitt • Ernie Kovacs • Hedy Lamarr • Michael Landon • Peter Lawford • Tony Lip • Jack Lord • Paul Lynde • Karl Malden • Marcel Marceau • E. G. Marshall • Dean Martin • Chico Marx • Groucho Marx • Harpo Marx • Walter Matthau • John McGiver • Steve McQueen • Ray Milland • Marilyn Monroe • Dudley Moore • Agnes Moorehead • Audie Murphy • Anthony Newley • Leonard Nimoy • Laurence Olivier • Alice Pearce • Clara Peller • Anthony Perkins • Markie Post • Tyrone Power • Maudie Prickett • Richard Pryor • George Raft • Sally Rand • Martha Raye • Donna Reed • Charles Nelson Reilly • Rin Tin Tin • Joan Rivers • Edward G. Robinson • Will Rogers • Cesar Romero • Jane Russell • Debralee Scott • George C. Scott • Tupac Shakur • Reta Shaw • Allan Sherman • Frank Sinatra • Brett Somers • Jimmy Stewart • Lana Turner • Peter Ustinov • Lupe Vélez • John Wayne • Orson Welles • James Westerfield Animators and cartoonists Tex Avery • Milton Caniff • V. T. Hamlin • Harvey Kurtzman • Bill Mauldin • Joe Shuster Artists Alexander Calder • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Leonardo da Vinci • Salvador Dalí • Marcel Duchamp • Albrecht Dürer • M. C. Escher • Hans Holbein • Frida Kahlo • Paul Klee • René Magritte • Michelangelo • Claude Monet • Grandma Moses • Georgia O'Keeffe • Pablo Picasso • Raphael • Diego Rivera • Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec • Joseph Turner • Vincent van Gogh • Andrea del Verrocchio • Andy Warhol • Grant Wood Authors, poets and writers Douglas Adams • Hans Christian Andersen • Isaac Asimov • Jane Austen • James Baldwin • Alfred Bester • William F. Buckley • Albert Camus • Lewis Carroll • Willa Cather • Geoffrey Chaucer • Agatha Christie • E. E. Cummings • Honoré de Balzac • Simone de Beauvoir • Robbie Burns • Charles Dickens • Emily Dickinson • Joan Didion • Walt Disney • Fyodor Dostoevsky • P. D. Eastman • Nora Ephron • William Faulkner • Anne Frank • Robert Frost • W.S. Gilbert • Allen Ginsberg • Jacob Grimm • Wilhelm Grimm • Lillian Hellman • Ernest Hemingway • Homer • Gerard Manley Hopkins • L. Ron Hubbard • Shirley Jackson • James Joyce • Franz Kafka • Helen Keller • Jack Kerouac • Francis Scott Key • Rudyard Kipling • Herman Melville • Margaret Mitchell • Toni Morrison • Pablo Neruda • Mary Norton • Boris Pasternak • Sylvia Plath • Edgar Allan Poe • Chaim Potok • Alexander Pushkin • Ayn Rand • Barry Sadler • J. D. Salinger • Sappho of Lesbos • Jean-Paul Sartre • Mary Shelley • Isaac Bashevis Singer • Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn • Susan Sontag • Gertrude Stein • John Steinbeck • Robert Louis Stevenson • Hunter S. Thompson • Leo Tolstoy • Ivan Turgenev • Mark Twain • Sun Tzu • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe • Kurt Vonnegut • David Foster Wallace • H. G. Wells • Walt Whitman • Oscar Wilde • Laura Ingalls Wilder • Virginia Woolf • Émile Zola Business people P. T. Barnum • Charlie Bluhdorn • Billy Carter • Toussaint Charbonneau • Henry Ford • J. Paul Getty • Samuel Hill • Steve Jobs • John D. Rockefeller Jr. • Kermit Roosevelt • Colonel Sanders • Oskar Schindler Comedians and humorists Erma Bombeck • Lenny Bruce • Eddie Cantor • Carol Channing • Hans Conried • Jimmy Durante • Chris Farley • W. C. Fields • Larry Fine • Freeman Gosden • Arsenio Hall • Bob Hope • Curly Howard • Moe Howard • Shemp Howard • Danny Kaye • Ernie Kovacs • Paul Lynde • Dick Martin • Chico Marx • Groucho Marx • Harpo Marx • Minnie Pearl • Richard Pryor • Charles Nelson Reilly • Allan Sherman Criminals Ma Barker • Clyde Barrow • Billy the Kid • Osama bin Laden • Blackbeard • John Wilkes Booth • Lizzie Borden • Al Capone • Albert DeSalvo • John Dillinger • Guy Fawkes • Jack the Ripper • Lee Harvey Oswald • Bonnie Parker • Jack Ruby • John Flammang Schrank • Joe Valachi Directors, producers and writers Ingmar Bergman • Betty Comden • Walt Disney • Dodi Fayed • Bob Fosse • Alfred Hitchcock • Leslie Howard • Stanley Kubrick • Joshua Logan • Jack Lord • David O. Selznick • Allan Sherman • Frank Tashlin • Orson Welles Lawyers Roy Cohn • Clarence Darrow • Samuel Hill • John F. Kennedy, Jr. • Janet Reno • Francis Scott Key • Roger Sherman Military Idi Amin • Benedict Arnold • Attila the Hun • Robert Baden-Powell • William Bligh • Simón Bolívar • Napoleon Bonaparte • Federico Borrell García • Che Guevara • Crazy Horse • Abner Doubleday • Hannibal • Genghis Khan • Robert E. Lee • Charles Lindbergh • Horatio Nelson • George S. Patton • Chief Pontiac • Paul Revere • Barry Sadler • Hideki Tojo • Sun Tzu • William Wallace • Earl Woods Musicians Cannonball Adderley • Louis Armstrong • Fred Astaire • Johann Sebastian Bach • Ludwig van Beethoven • Irving Berlin • The Big Bopper • Eubie Blake • John Bonham • Sonny Bono • David Bowie • Eddie Cantor • Carol Channing • Maurice Chevalier • Kurt Cobain • John Coltrane • Bing Crosby • Sammy Davis, Jr. • Miles Davis • Jimmy Durante • Tennessee Ernie Ford • Aretha Franklin • Judy Garland • Dizzy Gillespie • Benny Goodman • Betty Grable • Joseph Haydn • Isaac Hayes • Jimi Hendrix • Billie Holiday • Buddy Holly • Danny Kaye • Eartha Kitt • John Lennon • Liberace • Dean Martin • Freddie Mercury • Carmen Miranda • Thelonious Monk • Lee Morgan • Jim Morrison • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Harry Nilsson • Charlie Parker • Tom Petty • Cole Porter • Elvis Presley • Prince • Sergei Rachmaninoff • Maurice Ravel • Rodgers and Hammerstein • Jane Russell • Barry Sadler • Antonio Salieri • Adolphe Sax • Franz Schubert • Tupac Shakur • Allan Sherman • Don Shirley • Zoot Sims • Frank Sinatra • Arthur Sullivan • McCoy Tyner • Rudy Vallée • Luther Vandross • Sarah Vaughan • Sid Vicious • Antonio Vivaldi • Muddy Waters • Gerald Wilson Playwrights William Congreve • Arthur Miller • Alexander Pushkin • George Bernard Shaw • William Shakespeare • Neil Simon • Oscar Wilde • Tennessee Williams Politicians Bella Abzug • Abigail Adams • Sam Adams • Spiro Agnew • Idi Amin • Mark Antony • Fulgencio Batista • Menachem Begin • Simón Bolívar • Sonny Bono • Eva Braun • Marcus Junius Brutus • Warren E. Burger • Aaron Burr • Julius Caesar • Caligula • Samuel Chase • Winston Churchill • Schuyler Colfax • Davy Crockett • John W. Davis • Moshe Dayan • Thomas E. Dewey • Mamie Eisenhower • Benjamin Franklin • Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Hermann Göring • John Hancock • Florence Harding • Charles Evans Hughes • Estes Kefauver • Bobby Kennedy • Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. • Ruhollah Khomeini • Nikita Khrushchev • Vladimir Lenin • Mary Lincoln • Huey Long • John A. Macdonald • Dolley Madison • Nelson Mandela • John Marshall • Joe McCarthy • Ida Saxton McKinley • Robert McNamara • Golda Meir • Slobodan Milošević • Benito Mussolini • Nero • Huey P. Newton • Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis • Lord Palmerston • Pontius Pilate • William Pitt • Pol Pot • Janet Reno • Eleanor Roosevelt • Roger Sherman • Louis St. Laurent • Joseph Stalin • Adlai Stevenson I • Adlai Stevenson II • Nellie Taft • U Thant • Otto von Bismarck • Sir Francis Walsingham • Earl Warren • Martha Washington • William Windom • Mao Zedong Presidents of the USA John Adams • John Quincy Adams • Chester A. Arthur • James Buchanan • Grover Cleveland • Calvin Coolidge • Dwight D. Eisenhower • Millard Fillmore • James A. Garfield • Ulysses S. Grant • Warren G. Harding • Benjamin Harrison • William Henry Harrison • Rutherford B. Hayes • Herbert Hoover • Andrew Jackson • Thomas Jefferson • Andrew Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson • John F. Kennedy • Abraham Lincoln • James Madison • William McKinley • James Monroe • Franklin Pierce • James K. Polk • Ronald Reagan • Franklin D. Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt • William Howard Taft • Zachary Taylor • Harry S. Truman • John Tyler • Martin Van Buren • George Washington • Woodrow Wilson Religious figures Ambrose of Milan • Thomas Aquinas • St. Augustine of Hippo • St. Barnabus • Saint Bartholomew • Gautama Buddha • Saint Eleutherius • Aloysius Gonzaga • Hillel • Ignatius of Loyola • Joan of Arc • Pope John Paul II • John the Baptist • Saint Joseph • Judas • Saint Lucian • Martin Luther • Mary Magdalene • Virgin Mary • Thomas More • Moses • St. Peter • Samuel • St. Sebastian • Zeno of Verona Royalty Alexander the Great • Anne of Cleves • Marie Antoinette • Anne Boleyn • Charlemagne • Cleopatra • King David • Princess Diana • Princess Grace of Monaco • Queen Elizabeth I • King Francis I • King George III • Haakon IV of Norway • Henry V • Henry VI • Henry VII • Henry VIII • Herod the Great • Jezebel • Joseph II • Macbeth • Queen Mary I • Louis Mountbatten • Napoleon III • Richard III • Haile Selassie I • Jane Seymour • Queen Victoria • Kaiser Wilhelm II Scientists and inventors Charles Babbage • Alexander Graham Bell • Katherine Blodgett • Niels Bohr • George Boole • George Washington Carver • Nicolaus Copernicus • Alexander Cummings • James Cummings • Marie Curie • Pierre Curie • Leonardo da Vinci • Charles Darwin • Thomas Edison • Albert Einstein • Henry Ford • Benjamin Franklin • Rosalind Franklin • Sigmund Freud • Galileo Galilei • Elisha Gray • Stephen Hawking • Frederick Ives • Hedy Lamarr • Ada Lovelace • Guglielmo Marconi • A. J. P. Martin • J. Earl McLeod • Margaret Mead • Lise Meitner • Maria Montessori • Samuel Morse • Isaac Newton • Alfred Nobel • J. Robert Oppenheimer • Linus Pauling • Joseph Pedott • Pythagoras • Srinivasa Ramanujan • Jesse W. Reno • Carl Sagan • Adolphe Sax • B. F. Skinner • Smith Brothers • Nikola Tesla • James Watt • Eli Whitney • William Hyde Wollaston • Orville Wright • Wilbur Wright Sports Cap Anson • Juan Belmonte • Mordecai Brown • Ty Cobb • James J. Corbett • Jim Creighton • Joe DiMaggio • Eddie Gaedel • Lou Gehrig • Edwin Gourdin • Woody Hayes • Pinky Higgins • Ben Hogan • Harry Hooper • Steve Howe • Carl Hubbell • Shoeless Joe Jackson • Napoleon Lajoie • Sonny Liston • Vince Lombardi • Connie Mack • Mickey Mantle • Bronco Nagurski • Paavo Nurmi • Mel Ott • Jesse Owens • Jackie Robinson • Knute Rockne • Babe Ruth • Seabiscuit • Secretariat • Warren Spahn • Gabby Street • Pie Traynor • Honus Wagner • Ted Williams • Babe Didrikson Zaharias Other Ralph Abernathy • Susan B. Anthony • Simeon ben Eleazar • Barnacle Bill • Crazy Horse • Diane Arbus • André Bazin • Roy Bean • William Bligh • Howard Carter • Fletcher Christian • César Chávez • Julia Child • William Clark • Christopher Columbus • William Dawes • Diogenes • Karl Friedrich Louis Dobermann • Dolly • Amelia Earhart • Roger Ebert • Leif Erikson • Bobby Fischer • Samuel Gompers • Will Harridge • Toyotomi Hideyoshi • Him • Duncan Hines • Hippocrates • J. Edgar Hoover • Bess Houdini • Harry Houdini • David Hume • Peter Jennings • Emmett Kelly • Martin Luther King Jr. • Evel Knievel • Dorothea Lange • Meriwether Lewis • Shari Lewis • Charles Lindbergh • Maimonides • Ferdinand Magellan • James Marshall • Marshall McLuhan • George Meany • Robert Mills • Robert Moses • Lucretia Mott • Edward R. Murrow • Friedrich Nietzsche • Florence Nightingale • Nostradamus • Annie Oakley • I. M. Pei • Pauline Pfeiffer • Pocahontas • Walter Raleigh • Bass Reeves • Hadley Richardson • Betsy Ross • Sacagawea • Albert Schweitzer • Jerry Siegel • Socrates • Nancy Spungen • Ed Sullivan • John Sutter • Harriet Tubman • Lao Tzu • Sander Vanocur • Emiliano Zapata

The Simpsons characters

The Simpsons and relatives Jacqueline Bouvier • Patty Bouvier • Selma Bouvier • Abraham Simpson • Bart Simpson (Bartman • El Barto) • Homer Simpson • Lisa Simpson • Maggie Simpson • Marge Simpson • Mona Simpson Jub-Jub • Plopper • Santa's Little Helper • Snowball II Around Springfield Kumiko Albertson • Ms. Albright • Jasper Beardley • Benjamin • Blue-haired lawyer • Shauna Chalmers • Comic Book Guy • Crazy Cat Lady • Larry Dalrymple • Doug • Eddie • Maude Flanders • Ned Flanders • Julio Franco • Jonathan Frink • Gary • Alice Glick • Barney Gumble • Gil Gunderson • Constance Harm • Bernice Hibbert • Julius Hibbert • Julius Hibbert's daughter • Julius Hibbert's oldest son • Lionel Hutz • Jacques • "Just stamp the ticket" man • Princess Kashmir • Hyman Krustofsky • Akira Kurosawa • Cookie Kwan • Grady Little • Lou • Helen Lovejoy • Jessica Lovejoy • Timothy Lovejoy, Jr. • Barry Mackleberry • Jerri Mackleberry • Jack Marley • Horatio McCallister • Milo • Hans Moleman • Marvin Monroe • Eddie Muntz • Mrs. Muntz • Bleeding Gums Murphy • Lindsey Naegle • Nahasapeemapetilon octuplets (Anoop • Gheet • Nabendu • Poonam • Pria • Sandeep • Sashi • Uma) • Apu Nahasapeemapetilon • Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon • Sanjay Nahasapeemapetilon • Old Jewish man • Ruth Powers • Gareth Prince • Gloria Prince • Joe Quimby (Mayor Quimby's body guards) • Martha Quimby • Raphael • Luigi Risotto • Nick Riviera • Sam • Gerald Samson • Agnes Skinner • Roy Snyder • Spuckler children (Dubya • Whitney) • Brandine Spuckler • Cletus Spuckler • Squeaky-voiced teen • Strawberry • Disco Stu • Moe Szyslak • Kirk Van Houten • Luann Van Houten • Clancy Wiggum • Sarah Wiggum • Yes Guy • Artie Ziff Celebrities Bill and Marty • Booberella • Kent Brockman • Bumblebee Man • Scott Christian • Duffman • Matt Groening • Krusty the Clown • Lurleen Lumpkin • Troy McClure • Sideshow Mel • Roger Meyers, Jr. • Arnie Pye • Pyro • Dave Shutton • Jebediah Springfield • Miss Springfield • Drederick Tatum • Mr. Teeny • Rainier Wolfcastle (McBain) Springfield Elementary School faculty and students Chuck Berger • Black weasel • Wendell Borton • Gary Chalmers • Lewis Clark • Database • Lunchlady Dora • E-mail • Rod Flanders • Todd Flanders • Ham • JJ Hibbert • Elizabeth Hoover • Sophie Jensen • Jimbo Jones • Edna Krabappel • Coach Krupt • Dewey Largo • Sherri Mackleberry • Terri Mackleberry • Otto Mann • Audrey McConnell • Nelson Muntz • Nell Nicholson • Brunella Pommelhorst • Janey Powell • Martin Prince • J. Loren Pryor • Report Card • Richard • Dolph Shapiro • Becky Shorter • Nina Skalka • Seymour Skinner • Cosine Tangent • Allison Taylor • Milhouse Van Houten • Wanda • Ralph Wiggum • Groundskeeper Willie • Hubert Wong • Yellow weasel • Jaffee Ziswhisky • Üter Zörker • Kearney Zzyzwicz Blond-haired boy with glasses • Brown-haired boy • Buck-toothed boy • Buck-toothed girl • Girl with glasses • Lewis look-alike • Long haired girl Springfield Nuclear Power Plant Blinky • Charles Montgomery Burns (The Hounds) • Carl Carlson • Charlie • Lenny Leonard • Waylon Smithers, Jr. • Smitty Villains Sideshow Bob • Frankie the Squealer • Herman Hermann • Snake Jailbird • Kang Johnson • Kodos Johnson • Legs • Louie • The Rich Texan • Hank Scorpio • Johnny Tightlips • Fat Tony Other characters Capital City Goofball • Jesus Christ • Santa Claus • Devil • Fallout Boy • Itchy • God • Leprechaun • Richard Nixon • Poochie • Radioactive Man • Scratchy Families The Simpsons • The Bouviers • The Flanderses • The Hibberts • The Krustofskys • The Lovejoys • The Spucklers • The Van Houtens • The Wiggums • The Muntzes Miscellaneous Doppelgängers • Fictional characters • LGBT characters • Animals • Deceased characters • Crossover characters • One-time characters • Recurring characters • Non-canon characters