Comfort Characters

[Brianb486]

I want to start a thread about fictional characters that have gotten me through the worst of times. I will start with my favorite character all time no question. ENA. She is from a indie youtube animation and I love the surrealist Windows 99 vaporwave aesthetic and ties to Peruvian culture from the creator Joel G. I am curious if other people have any comfort characters and who they are and what they mean to you? Browt from the upcoming new upcoming pokemon game is becoming one of my favorites as well.

[Marcine]

Great question, Brianb486.

I have 2 inspiring fictional characters to offer.
One from a book— in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the main character named Montag chooses to keep his humanity in a society that tries everything to destroy it.

The other is Rumi from the movie KPop Demon Hunters. She accepts her "flawed", scared, beautiful entire self and realizes truth is the antidote to shame + the path to all that is right and good.
(Plus she sings great songs and wields massively effective swords!)

[Brianb486]

Fahrenheit 451 sounds like a great book, I am trying to get back into reading so I may pick that one up. KPop Demon Hunters is such a great movie.

[Marcine]

There's a brilliant Fahrenheit 451 graphic novel, the authorized adaptation by Tim Hamilton.

I checked out ENA. What a work of art. The surrealist worlds and multi-language, multi-dimensional characters, especially the multitude of ENAs with notorious reputations... thanks for sharing that.

I also resonate with Princess Mononoke for her deep passion, untamed nature and moral convictions.

[Dark.art.girl]

Brian!! Love the Vaporwave genre--music, aesthetic, etc. I also really love Blade Runner in combination with that aesthetic.

I just watched ENA-Extinction Party and I can totally see why this is comforting. It's like, video game format meets trippy vaporwave animation but it doesn't make you feel uneasy at all lol

Also, not sure if this counts but when I was a kid I watched a lot of animated short films on YouTube. One of them is called Entropy and it's definitely a comfort video for me. It's so cute! There were a lot of really good ones back then and they were all really raw.

[Brianb486]

I have never seen this short before but I very much see the appeal. I love the Tim Burton aesthetic of it with the bold lines on the characters. Such a simple yet elegant short with the sound design and music as well. Really comforting from what I can gather.

[lowbudgetTV]

ENA is one of my partner's favorite characters ever. I believe she's still the icon of a group chat we have.

As for me, I can think of a few good ones. A recent one is Kris, the main character of the game Deltarune. It's a popular and beloved game for a reason, but Kris goes through a lot. I relate in a creative way to them. I've also always connected with "N" from Pokemon. There's a lot of abused kids in Pokemon actually, but the stories are a bit... emotionally devoid of doing anything too drastic for me to feel catharsis. So I "steal" them, they're "mine" now. I play with them like dolls. Therapeutic 

I also love some characters for being aspirational in that I imagine them as... well, the best analogy would be a "knight in shining armor". It is not hard for some of us to imagine ourselves as the stereotypical princess in tower, awaiting rescue. I love characters like Optimus Prime (whose Voice Actor's famous quote from his brother being "Be Tough Enough to be Gentle") and even Master Chief from Halo. Samus Aran (Metroid) is an in-between sometimes too, and she's awesome.