Well, my list is ever changing, but my current favourite character is by far the Doctor (not that one!) from Star Trek: Voyager. He's just so sarcastic. And he's got those quips.
"I'm a doctor, not an interior designer!"

Hermione appealed to me enough to be my username. We're both bookish straight A students (or rather, I would be if I didn't have massive senioritis right now) who value grades but will put them aside for their values. We both fear failure. We even kind of look alike.

Data (Star Trek TNG) is just one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. He's a lovely paradox - a cold, emotionless android who is incredibly kind and caring. He's superior to humans in many ways, knows he is, and yet wants to be human. He doesn't understand humanity but he ends up understanding all the important things about it. His journey is by turns hilarious (Sherlock Holmes cosplaying), heartbreaking (his daughter Lal), adorable (he has a striped cat named Spot), heartwarming (his views on his friendship with Geordi), and powerful (his fight to be recognized as a person). I love him so much.

Garak (Star Trek DS9) is completely amazing and it pains me that he isn't a regular. I know he really couldn't be, but still, I thoroughly enjoy every moment he's on screen. First of all, he's hilarious. His sort of lying charm is fun to watch, and his inability to be straightforward means he's unpredictable. You don't know who's side he's on, but his actor is a master of subtext and you get subtle hints about his true feelings and his back story. I adore his relationship with Bashir because the chemistry of naïve Starfleet human and morally ambiguous alien is so good.

Loki (Avengers), what do I say about him? He's been interpreted so many different ways and I don't think either "misunderstood baby" or "violent psychopath" are entirely correct. My interpretation is the same as Tom Hiddleston's. I don't want to try to say it as well as Tom, so if you want to know just look it up.

Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) had a very important impact on me as a little kid. Heck, I still admire her. I understand feeling like your life is dull and dreaming of going to fantastical places. I still do that. I want to go on my own quests and take control of my own destiny. Plus, I could go on for hours about the way those books are more feminist than books being written now. Short version: Oz is a matriarchy.

Okay, I've already broken the three character limit, so I'll stop now.

Homura Akemi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica)

There's two types of characters I like most: badasses and adorable girls. Homura has been both.
And about abuse, oooh boy. Homura got it hard. Pretty much the only things she lacks in that department are abusive parents (it's implied she's an orphan, which is another can of trouble) and sexual abuse, but she's got basically everything else on the bad happenings list.
Add the fact that she used to be a shy, cute girl with health issues, and you know why pretty much every Boarder who has seen the series wants to give her an hug.
But another reason why I like her is because she doesn't mope about it.
She geared up and fought back, becoming probably one of the badassest characters out there. Her series is an harsh one for Magical Girls, and is out to break her twenty-four hours a day. And it broke her. But she taped her pieces together and kept going.
(Not going to open the can of evil that the Rebellion movie is. Let's just say that I would pull Homura (and probably Madoak and the other characters too) out of it if I had the chance.)

Sakura Kinomoto (Card Captor Sakura)
Well, should I call her "my old love"? There's something about this character that I always liked (and proof is the fact that I used a badfic clone of her as a basis for Nikki). Her hardships aren't comparable to Homura's, but Sakura's "Everything will be alright!" attitude is the charm. She's one of those characters that, even when scared or facing an apparently impossible deed, will not lose hope. She also has a clumsy, "funny" side that rounds her well.

Conan Edogawa/Shinichi Kudo (Detective Conan)
The not-so-kid detective. Aside from his almost inhuman investigation abilities, the reason why I like his character is that he always keeps a clear mind when facing problems, and manages to keep high moral values even when facing murderers almost daily. He won't let a murderer commit suicide or die from a danger if he can do it, and in fact even feels guilty for the only time he didn't manage too.
Of course, he has his funny sides too.

There's many other characters I like, but, you know, rule fo three...

First and foremost: Princess Twilight Sparkle. She reminds me of me--smart, freaks out about tests, isolated from society until recently, and learning about friendship. Besides that, magic happens to fascinate me. Watching Friendship is Magic always makes me feel better, and with a central character so strong and talented (and cute)...yeah. (Of course I love the other mane five, but Twilight is best pony.)

Second, most of the core cast of Fullmetal Alchemist. (Ed, Al, Roy, Hughes, Hawkeye, and Envy because shapeshifting.) The show was one of the first anime I really got into; I think I can still quote most of the first eight English episodes from memory, in the characters' voices. (I don't try with the chimera episode, though; too sad D:) The casting is perfect, the characters themselves have the best banter with each other, and to top it off, they're all total badasses.

Third, Tsunemori Akane, from Psycho-Pass. She seems like your standard cutesy protagonist at odds with the cyberpunk setting, but she gradually toughens up and, later in the run, KNOCKS OUT THE MAIN BAD GUY (a bigger maniac than the Joker and Moriarty together) WITH A HELMET HE DESIGNED! Akane is also able to keep her Hue clear (long story, go watch the show) no matter how creepy the cases are, which more or less means she can stay sane. I wish I had her mad skills: some of those cases were flat-out horrifying. *shudder*

Fourth, Rose Tyler. Anybody who can talk A FRIGGIN DALEK out of exterminating someone (even if it would have been a completely appropriate ironic death and said Dalek was genetically altered) gets major Badass Points in my book. More importantly, she and the Doctor play well off each other; it's like watching best friends bicker =D

I have more favorites, but I need to study for a Statistics test. -_-

Barbara Chesterton (née Wright), who pioneered the Dalek-lens-blocking trick, smashed the mind-controlling entities that had ruled a city for some time, mowing down Daleks with a truck that hadn't been used in a long time, getting the Daleks into a panic with every bit of history she can dredge up, and surviving a fourth encounter with tougher Daleks than she's ever faced before according to Sarah Jane Smith. And if it weren't for the fact that Reapers would probably have turned up, I'd have said her attempt at an Aztec Reformation.

Sarah Jane. To quote Agent Tawaki, she has "helped the Doctor thwart two evil plans to 'save' the world, organized a mass escape attempt among doomed slaves, faced a variety of monsters and survived, ... [and] threatened to blow Davros to Hell".

K-9. Pretty handy when facing a non-First-Law-compliant robot parrot or aliens who have infiltrated a school staff with the intention of becoming gods. Has some great banter, too. Just don't tell it to "forget it" unless neuralyzing it. And why the [Old High Kaled expletive] did a fan have to make a lime of it and Mickey!?

Fluttershy. I'm just as afraid of harming others, and I really like birds. She also has a Stare that she has the character not to use for evil purposes, and she has a way with animals. But why the siiripat sulat did somepony have to make her mind-rape Rainbow Dash (or turn Dashie into a neo-Spartan foal-killer or turn Pinkie into Sweeney Trot, for that matter)?

There are more, but I have to leave for work now.

Faramir. He showed that the right thing can be done, even if it is painful, and he just kept going even when it was pretty much hopeless. I know he was supposed to be the opposite of Boromir, there to show the potential of Men and some people say he is too good as written, but when I first read LotR, I was very black and white thinking.

I went to a school with an atmosphere of abusing the kids, just because they had the opportunity to do so. Like actual physical abuse, an example would be a bus driver grabbing a first grader by the arm, picking him up over the seat, slamming him to the floor of the aisle, and then literally dragging him up the aisle, banging his head on seats and backpacks as he went. And verbal stuff like the teacher who felt it was perfectly allowable to call everyone in her room fat, lazy cows and tell us that she had a gun in her desk and wouldn't be afraid to use it on us. Honestly, she wasn't the worst (there was one guy who actively enjoyed mentally torturing the students, and was very good at it), just the most direct.

Anyway, a black and white thinker combined with that environment? Faramir was like a hope for the future that not everyone was like that, and sometimes people who were good came out the other side and got to have a good life.

Thane (Mass Effect)
Oh dear Lord, where do I begin with this guy? I can't tell you how much I love this character: everything from his design, to his characterization, to his romance arc in the second game of the series... Holy ...ing shit, I love this guy. The fact that he is the reason why I got into Mass Effect in the first place should tell you everything. Which makes it a shame that he was put to the side in ME3, and which makes it even worse that the fandom has neglected him completely since then: though I guess that's some comfort, considering that there was a lot of bad shipfic starring Thane...

Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games)
I've seen people talk about how she's a Canon Sue, but personally I don't really buy that argument. Yeah, she's unusually gifted with a bow and the plot does sometimes make sure she doesn't kill anyone, and yeah she's certainly not the nicest girl in the world, which would make for a Sue most of the time, right? Not in this case: Katniss is kind of a mean girl, but it's all a function of the fact that she's living in a state of constant fear of losing those close to her because of the environment she was brought up in. And considering my heritage, I gravitate towards that quite a bit, and it annoys me when I see Sues that try to push her to the sidelines of her own story...

For anyone who doesn't know, Ace McShane is the Seventh Doctor's primary companion. She first met the Doctor in a Dalek-infested warzone, which she survived in by blowing them up with anti-tank rockets, her own homemade explosives (I have a badge that says "Ask me about Nitro-9!"), and a baseball bat. Yeah, you read that right. She attacked a Dalek with a baseball bat... and won. And she only gets more awesome from there.

Ace McShane: the Whoniverse's baddest of asses. =]

Rose Tyler! The first Doctor Who companion I ever saw, and she really was epic. She stared into the Time Vortex and lived, and her as Bad Wolf.
This may or may not be the reason why I love Rose/10 fics.
I watched Doomsday on the weekend, and was SOBBING at the end. It was such a great episode. And they nearly confessed their love for each other!
That said, the sudden arrival of Donna Noble in her wedding dress was quite funny.

By the way, I love Fairy Tail, and Lucy. My favorite characters are Lucy, Erza and Mirajane. Strangely, not Juvia. She's more like comic relief to me...

~Kitty

The most tragic fictional character of all time, in my opinion. He was bitten by Greyback at the age of four, spent most of his childhood thinking he had no future, thought he'd lost all his friends in a single night and spent over a decade alone, was almost unable to find employment because of his condition, and when it finally seemed he found happiness- married to a woman who loved him regardless of that, had a son- he died. HOW IS THAT FAIR.

Well, currently, I'm going through a Codex Alera obsession-phase, so...

(Also, SPOILERS AHEAD. If you ever intend to read the series, stay away.)

Tavi. Tavar. Gaius Octavian. Gaius Tavarus Magnus. He is insane, and brilliant, and so wonderfully, absurdly clever. Watch him successfully hold a bridge, unexpectedly captain of a mostly-untrained Legion, while outnumbered 10 to 1 by nine-foot-tall wolfmen, and tell me he's not madly amazing. Or that duel with Navaris, one of the top three swordspeople in the world. He wins by talking to her about a pain they share. Or both variations on the theme of ice-ships. Or the fact that he broke into the most secure prison in the Realm. Twice. The second time after he suggested improvements. Or that he's gadara (trusted enemy, approximately) to a centuries-old Canim warmaster. Or, finally, that Realm-wide watercrafting he sent out to counter the vord Queen's. I could go on.

And his mother threw a shark onto a pirate ship. And then healed a life threatening injury in five minutes. Without a healing tub. And that's not even mentioning how she got High Lord Antillus's support. Snow for watercrafting! We know where Tavi got his creativity, certainly.

But honestly, over the past while, quite unexpectedly, Fidelias/Valiar Marcus has been growing on me. He's interesting, and though his name seems misleading at first, considering how he's the wild card of the cast (Invidia goes beyond wild card territory and straight into chronic backstabbing disorder), he's always, always, loyal to Alera as a whole. And he really did like being Valiar Marcus. It was good for him. Also, his resignation letter to Lady Aquitaine was sort of brilliant.

There are lots of other characters I could gush about, and not just Codex ones either (although a chance to go on about Varg is something I shall have to appropriate at some point), but it's late, I'm tired, and I should really be asleep. Night!

-Aila

Daniel Bryan Danielson (WWE): There's always times when one feels like they are being held back by the man and I can definitely see that bit of myself in him.

Lucy is my favorite Fairy Tail character. She is much saner than everyone else there, and she's hilarious. She also tries hard, and even though she's not as powerful as the rest of the cast, she still gets on and fights. She doesn't even make her celestial spirits do all the work.

I also kind of like Ron. He's a nice, loyal guy who's been through a lot. He's a great comfort to Harry, and the kind of friend that you can tell about you hilarious O.W.L. mistakes is completely priceless. I'd like a friend like that.

Ron is also completely abused. He's not hawt and he's not extraordinary in any way, so he's made into a jerk. Suethors really need to know that 'somewhat immature' does not mean 'completely evil'. His relationship with Hermione in canon was cute, and it's nice to see that the girl is not paired up with the main character for once. I hate Suethors who think that H/Hr should be the canon ship simply because of that expectation. Harry and Hermione are friends, and that should be quite enough.