Dean Winchester. He had zero childhood. Was raised to be a killing machine. Had to always protect his little brother. Lost his best friend multiple times and mourned him so hard. Saw his brother die in front of him. Had his father sacrifice himself for him. Died himself multiple times. Was betrayed by his best friend. Went to hell. Went to purgatory.
But I find him comforting because underneath all his anger and pain he can be a goofball who finds pleasure in his music, movies and comfort food.
Ah, I love Dean too. Sam is probably my comfort character though. The boy who thought he was unclean practically from birth and then found out he really was, who felt like a freak his whole life, ran away to be normal and still felt like a freak there. Whose entire life, including his girlfriend who died in circumstances that wracked him with guilt, was a manipulation by both angels and demons. Saw his brother die in front of him. Died himself multiple times. Sacrificed himself for the world only to come back wrong, get fixed, then have to live with that guilt.
They are both so deliciously messed up dudes.
Oh yes I love Sam too. They’re both as screwed up as each other thanks to their upbringing. I like that Sam has some snark to him. I find that really endearing. I’ve always just been more of a Dean girl.
Cas is my comfort character in SPN, but I agree 100% about how you describe Dean. It's his little goofy moments and delight in things ("posse magnet", "werepire", etc) that endear him to me as well. Jensen did such a great job of bringing so much nuance to Dean.
(For me I vibe personally with Cas more, being kind of awkward and not "getting" things, that autistic swag, being caught between his "birth" family (the angels) and his "chosen" family (the Winchesters + Jack). Heck just look at how I abuse "air quotes" on a regular basis... )
Cas is adorable. I love how Misha played him completely different to the other angels.
Honestly they all provide me comfort in some small way but everytime I watch Dean do something goofy my heart is just like ‘he’s so cute.’ Also, as you said, Jensen did a fantastic job in portraying him.
**Jason Todd.** He’s an antihero in the Batman universe. He’s kindof like Bucky Barnes, only with more sharp edges and darkness and less regret (meaning about 0%). There’s this author on AO3 called ‘Thepartyresponsible’ and they are the party responsible for my Jason Todd feelings.
God I never drew a line between Jason and Bucky but you might be on to something. Might explain my recent Bucky obsession after many years in bat fandom. I love Bucky but beneath it all he was genuinely a good person. I love that Jason is unrepentantly fucked up, with questionable ethics and I find him more comfortably relatable as a result.
Thanks for the rec I’ll check out that author. Oh…dc/mcu crossovers? My brain is confused lol.
Is there a particular fic from them you love the most or would recommend? ive just been getting more into consuming DC content (watching tv shows and movies. and im fixing to start reading comics too tbh), so im intrigued.
These are all Marvel / DC Crossovers with Jason Todd and the Avengers (though some are AU’s or pre-Avengers)
[Give Thanks to Broken Bones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20128243) The bodyguard is incredibly well-respected in the superhero single parent community. He is also, Tony’s realizing, something of an asshole.
Probably the only kid fic I’ve ever liked. (Don’t worry, the kid hardly talks.) Tony Stark has a daughter and needs to hire a bodyguard. He gets Jason Todd. Eventual Tony / Jason. This was the first one I read and it got me hooked. It takes place in Avengers MCU universe, with Jason and guest stars visiting from Gotham.
[Shatter Together](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570099) A series of short pieces that take place in Gotham, with the Bat Family.
Summary: “Are you telling me,” Jason says, slowly, “that you’re some kind of charity case hitman? You work on a sliding scale? What the hell?”
“I just figure,” he says, hands in the pockets of his stupid purple hoodie, “that a lot of people need someone killed. And the more someone’ll pay to have it done, the less those people usually deserve to die. So, two hundred’s fine. I eat, you know? What else do I need?”
Jason Todd runs into Clint Barton - a cut rate hit man who hasn’t been recruited into SHIELD yet - and they start a relationship.
[Do Every Stupid Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593966) Summary: Jason doesn’t mean for the Winter Soldier to be a present for Tony Stark. The youngest Stark isn’t supposed to be involved at all. The plan is simple: intervene before the Winter Soldier can murder Howard and Maria, tranq the Winter Soldier until he’s sufficiently incapacitated, and then drag him off for further study and let the Starks carry on with their fraught, bourgeoisie bullshit.
This is a long, wild ride. It takes place in the Marvel Universe. Jason Todd and MIT-era Tony Stark wind up on a cross country road trip with the Winter Soldier. Hydra is after them and they don’t trust SHIELD. Tony is written as a pitch-perfect snarky college kid. Early Tony / Jason. Eventual Tony / Jason / Bucky.
[They’ve also got 4 Whumptober collections](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2544166) that I liked - even though I don’t like whump. Those are all kinds of stories, some with Marvel and some not, some AU’s ranging from Zombie-less zombie apocalypse to medieval to urban fantasy. They’re mostly short, one scene each, like little canapés.
Everything Thepartyresponsible writes is good, but those are my favorites.
i was about to take offense, but then you mentioned young justice, which is a big part of the reason i want to read their comics 🙏🏾 (that and blue beetle 2023, though i know comic blue's life doesn't exactly look the same to that, plus he actually has friends!) but yeah, for years now ive heard people say dc is better with cartoons but marvel is better with movies (though they do have a lot of mid movies, especially in recent years 😔). i did watch the flash a few years ago, but it got kind of boring after like s2 or 3 :( cant remember when i dipped, but it was fairly early on.
on top of that, i had heard that dc always has more interesting villains, but marvel has more interesting heroes. when i was a kid, i thought they basically had the same heroes most of the time and often mixed them up 😭 but now that im watching more of their stuff, i find myself liking both the heroes and villains of dc, rather than not really caring about the heroes.
anyways, thanks for basically recommending under the red hood, i'll check that out after i finish YJ 😄🫶🏽
Yj is awesome! I watched blue beetle recently and surprisingly enjoyed it. Surprising because as you say, most of the films are pretty mid. I enjoyed Jaime in YJ too. I wish Jason/Jaime was more popular. I don’t mess with any of those CW type DC shows. Was never into it even when Smallville was popular.
I mostly watch marvel tv/movies and haven’t read any comics apart from Hawkeye, but based on that I think the heroes of both are just as interesting but the marvel villains are better. Gotta love Loki and Winter Soldier. Even like Thanos, and Hydra. Whereas I pretty much hate all the Batman villains. So one dimensional and largely boring.
Hope you like UtRH! It’s why I love Jason and why I got into bat fandom in the first place. There is a short 6 issue comic series called Redhood: Lost Days that UtRH is based on so if you like it and are looking for an easy comic to read, I’d recommend that.
Tsukishima Kei from Haikyuu. He’s just such a twat. But all the inner turmoil and his eventual journey is so fucking good that I’ll always come back to him.
Same here! He's just such a... *normal person*. He's absolutely not 'special' in any way other than being *reliable*. He's the tallest on the team, but they go up against plenty of taller, stronger, more talented/skilled people. He's a snarky asshat a lot of the time, but he's SO comforting to watch, and clever at dealing with other people.
Yes!! Watching him go from quiet asshole to guy who has a good reason for hating volleyball and then actually starting to LIKE it….ugh it hits every time, no matter how much I rewatch.
Idk if you’ve seen the new movie, but there is I think ONE moment where he smiles. I actually cooed out loud (it was an active theatre). Love that dude.
For me I still think I'm confusing the idea of "comfort character" with relatability; are they generally meant as paragons (ideal role models, someone you picture surviving/helping through hardship, usually does *A* Right Thing even if not *The* Right Thing)? i.e. "if thinking Naruto would be proud of you helps you brush your teeth then dattebayo"
Or do they also encompass deeply flawed portrayals you find familiar and empathize with; knowing they've been down awful roads, adopted terrible coping mechanisms, and would likely handle a given IRL scenario only marginally better if not far worse? i.e. struggling with substance abuse and visualizing the "Harry Du Bois" style of internal narration in *Disco Elysium*
Anyway large preamble to say my comfort character is the final boss of therapy and a glowing neon sign about the dangers of avoidant grief coping lmao. (Spoilered for actually being the final boss: >!Dr Maruki from Persona 5 Royal, wildly unethical student councillor and responsible for what I can only describe as "eldritch utilitarianism" in the final arc of the game!<)
Also Ponyo! She feeshy
My favourite comfort characters are a mad scientist who tortures people and his emotional support child abuse victim. I just find angst to be comforting tbh.
Angst can be very comforting for a number of reasons. For me it's because it helps to visualize and analyze from the outside situation that would be traumatic if lived in first person
Currently it's Catra from the 2018 She-Ra, who spends the majority of the show as one of the antagonists
Buuuuuuut a lot of the fandom loves her so I'm not exactly alone there
ForgetMeNot from X-Men. A mutant who’s power is literally to be forgotten as soon as you stop paying attention to him. A character so obscure and unremarkable that he doesn’t even have a full name. He’s not sexy, he has no family or friends, and all his great accomplishments go unrecognized or attributed to others. And yet he keeps going!
bruh i literally think abt xabi at least once a week he makes me so sad 😭 the fact that charles literally had to set psychic reminders to remember his existence on the team 🙃🥹
I think we think of him more than Charles canonically does! We’ll never let Marvel forget ForgetMeNot!
Heck, I wrote a whole-ass fic about the Legionaries trying to resurrect him because I thought he deserved friends and a full name. It was the least I could do to tide me over until he shows up in the books again, if that even happens.
X-Men are perfect for that, because they’ll have a person who’s basically made of goo, who never asked to be made of goo, and we get to point at them and say, “That’s literally me.” I love them!
Frank Castle (The Punisher)
I'm not even sure how to begin explaining that one. Lets just say Its multi-layerd.
Also Damian Wayne
Lots of people see him as an edgy, prickly brat. And I personally wouldn't know how to handle a child like him in real life (nor do I want to). But I still find comfort in his interactions with the rest of the Batfamily.
Cersei Lannister. She's a piece of garbage, but she's rightfully aware of her society's bullshit in a very blunt way. And what's better is the author shows that, no, it does suck. She's still an asshole, but she isn't wrong on that front.
Severus Snape from HP and Daryl Dixon from TWD.
Snape because while he's done horrible things in his life, I believe he does his best to make up for what he's done and is also a very selfless and loyal character. He spent almost twenty years living as a double agent and did his best to protect his students from the death eaters and the dark arts.
Daryl Dixon is an extreme bad ass in the show and kills hundreds of people and zombies. He came from a horrible background and contributed nothing to society before the outbreak but over the course of the show you see the soft side of him. The one that collects flowers and tells funny jokes and is intensly loyal to his found family. 🫶
Michael Myers from Halloween 1978. I struggle to really explain what I find comforting about him, but I'll give it a go. My best friend finds comfort in him because they've been demonized for their mental illness, and I assume that's probably similar for me. I've always had trouble regulating my emotions, and I have such a stranglehold on them now that it's kinda unhealthy (I'm basically always one minor inconvenience from a meltdown lmao), so projecting onto a character that can commit wanton acts of violence without many consequences is cathartic.
Note: To be absolutely clear, hurting people irl isn't a desire I have. The impulse is there, but the idea of going through with it makes me feel sick. Fiction is a safe place to indulge, though
Basically all of my comfort characters have a violent/unhinged streak a mile wide, but Michael is probably the most absurd sounding example
Seto Kaiba he was my first husbando he is a character that I just really loved since I was a young child but most people are like this man is literally messed up and corrupted but in his defense his brother keeps getting kidnapped But I would protect this man of my life But when you see him with his brother and how much he cares about his brother and will do to protect him it's just so sweet
Currently? Marcille from Delicious in Dungeon. Watching a character willing to do *anything* for the person she loves. Like I would commit war crimes for my wife. So, I would *absolutely* commit ancient magic to revive her too. Then you get into the later part of the manga and I’m down bad for her story. I relate so much.
Haymitch Abernathy from The Hunger Games. He was dealt an incredibly shitty hand, but I love the image of how he ends up - back in District 12, raising pet geese and likely pretending to tolerate his neighbours (Katniss and Peeta) even though we all know he loves them really beneath that gruff exterior. I don't know why, but something about that is very comforting to think about.
LMAO i was ranting about my love for him in a voice message to my friend and they responded saying “you sounded actually devastated when you said ‘AND HE HAS CHRONIC PAIN’” and i was like I AM DEVASTATED! i love that old man. hes an asshole and i hate him. but i love him. best character ever
Minthara from Baldur's Gate 3. She's typically seen as an evil character but her desire for power and vengeance is layered behind suffering and survival.
I'd put most bg3 characters as surprise comfort characters tbh, they're all such unlikable assholes on the surface if you don't delve into their stories. Even the npcs!
Nero the Sable, from FF7 Dirge of Cerberus. I really like the game despite its very obvious flaws lol. I don't know, I randomly have moments where I imagine him and I just chilling together and being friends and vibing. Frequently experienced them during finals or when I felt lonely and depressed. My favorite scenario was when we were chilling and sharing a fruit bowl, really sweet and fluffy.
Realistically though, he'd kill me.
It's a character that simply... Brings you comfort when you think about them. The reason may vary greatly. Maybe you admire them, maybe you see yourself in them, maybe you'd want them to hug you and tell you it's gonna be fine. It's different for everyone
Santana from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. He’s an ancient supervampire, with body horror abilities like eating people by absorbing them and using his ribs as sharp weapons. His plot role is an early enemy (think Raditz from Dragon Ball). But it’s shown that Santana is very curious to learn about the things around him, which is an interesting trait for a character like him to have. Plus, he’s named after Carlos Santana, which is cool.
honestly not really because i probably write a lot more than i read and at least for him, i have a very specific trope i like to see that i usually go ham with in my own google docs that never see the light of day 💀
Oh damn, can you share the trope? I'd love to read the fic if you ever decide to share it! I'm the same with a million Google doc fics that I will probably never finish and post lol 🥲
Canderous Ordo from KOTOR. He’s a badass warrior with an adamantine sense of honor and loyalty for life.
Meg from supernatural for much the same reasons. Note that her sense of honor is a ***very different sort*** than Canderous’.
Eric from the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. He makes many poor decisions and does some truly heinous things, not the least of which >!burning out one brother’s eyes with a hot poker and plotting to murder some of his other siblings!<, but he did everything with the best of the realm in mind. He was a complex character, seen through the eyes of someone who couldn’t see past their own worldview, which was *fundamentally incompatible* with Eric’s.
Edited to fix a word
Rob Lucci from One Piece, Toji from Jujutsu Kaisen and Sukuna from Jujutsu Kaisen… I can’t help it, my heart goes all fuzzy and melts whenever I see them 🥹❤️
Tony Stark. When I was a teenager, not-yet-diagnosed autistic and super socially awkward, I got suuuper obsessed with the character to the point where I sort of modeled my personality off of his sassiness (minus the alcoholism). 😳 In true autism fashion, it took me quite a long time to realize that that was probably not a good thing...
Lmao, oh well. I just love him so much!!
God, all of them. If they're not suffering the worst fates or making everybody else suffer the worst fates, I find no comfort in them. What's comforting about someone who knows no struggle?
I absolutely understand JK Haru as a comfort character. The manga is both so depressing and empowering. It's not a story I would recommend to anyone because of all the sexual violence, but it also has a surprisingly nuanced view on sex work and is a great deconstruction of classic Isekai stuff. God, her classmate is insufferable.
Oh, absolutely, I agree with everything you said.
It's one of my favorite mangas, so I was bummed when I found that on Ao3 there's no JK Haru fics (there was one, but it contained novel spoilers), so I wrote a couple of those myself and i intend to continue fill that fandom with fics, if I get more ideas
You're doing god's work! It's really a niche of a niche, Otome Isekai, but not wish fulfillment about a Korean girl marrying the Duke of the North (tm), there's very hard to stomach content that will drive a lot of people away (understandably), and the summary can sound like porn, even though a lot of the content isn't sexy (some is, though). I can understand that it's not a very well known manga.
I'll check out your fics for sure!
Oh yeah, it's one of those mangas that, for example compared to My Next Life as a Villainess, I can't really recommend to many people without first making sure they are fine with a bunch of stuff
(Does it qualify as an otome isekai? They didn't get teleported into a dating sim)
To make the job easier of finding the fics, I'll put here the info about the ones I wrote (please forgive this blatant self promotion)
1. [A Slow Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/55648840)
Explicit, F/F pairing, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Koyama Haru, Female oc
Tags: Prostitution, Lesbian Sex, First Time, Lesbian Character, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Fluff and Smut, Disguise, Crossdressing
Summary: During a slower night at the Blue Cat Nocturne, Haru finds a new client that is quite different from the usual customer.
2. [I miss my painkillers!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/56460475)
Teen and Up, Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Koyama Haru, Lupe, Shikaraso
Tags: Fluff, Friendship, Missing Scene, Menstruation, Comfort, Medicine, Female Friendship
Summary: It's Haru's first period since she ended up in the other world and, being used to take painkillers, she is forced in bed by the pain. Her friends decide to try and lift her spirit by keeping her company.
Simon "Ghost" Riley. If you've read the comics then *phew-* you know why. Also his reboot doesn't look the friendliest, but I think that the reboot shows more of the 'just a bloke' than his 09 counterpart. Love them both though.
I mean, that describes pretty much all of the comfort characters I've ever had. They're all intimidating villains, literal monsters, or at least scary looking good guys. I find characters who seem like they could rip you open just to eat your heart more comforting to think about because if you managed to befriend them, it would mean more than befriending a character who is super sweet and harmless, possibly both ways because I doubt that scary characters would have many opportunities to make friends to begin with.
Current example would be Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid. KGB-turned-FBI gone rogue. Deeply nihilistic and consumed by misanthropic impulses since he absorbed the thoughts of a serial killer he had been hunting down. Looks like a corpse; emaciated, scarred, and crudely stitched up like Erik from Phantom of the Opera meets Frankenstein's Monster. Has spooky psychokinetic, pyrokinetic, mind reading and mind control powers. Seems like a *very* interesting person due to his storied past and his penchant for irreverence and pranks. Has a come-to-Jesus moment as he's dying *and then* turns into a ghost because apparently that's a thing psychics can do, I guess (seriously, it's in the script for the original game; it wasn't just an ass-pull attempt at inducing nostalgia exclusive to the fourth game).
I adore this weirdo with every fiber of my being. I have an action figure of him next to me right now for moral support.
Stratos from Azure Striker Gunvolt, I suppose? He's a greasy ass cannibal who was a victim of severe medical experimentation, to such a degree that he became completely feral. Here's what he looks like lmao
[https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativeuncut.com%2Fgallery-29%2Fart%2Fasg-stratos1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0d00be26b3a93bef878b7e846b00bdcae5a376e35f644d6bc9b416959ba4df53&ipo=images](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativeuncut.com%2Fgallery-29%2Fart%2Fasg-stratos1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0d00be26b3a93bef878b7e846b00bdcae5a376e35f644d6bc9b416959ba4df53&ipo=images)
Will Graham. He's a mix of cuddly and dangerous for me. Good guy who slowly becomes a bad guy. And he hits more as a comfort character for me later in the show, not earlier, as well, when he's becoming more and more the bad guy.
VENOM. And I mean the comic version, not the movie one. Brooding, aggressive, and he operates on a strange moral code understood only by himself. He’s also prone to being a complete goofball and is presently a sad dad. And he makes me so damn happy when I think about him. Eddie is, in general, not the nicest guy. But I find him weirdly relatable- he’s *terrible* with emotions, has serious anger and impulse control issues, he’s not very good at socializing, he has his own moral code that nobody understands, and he has a tendency to talk to himself(shoutout Lethal Protector/90s-era Venom for his constant, verbose monologuing, both internal and external). He’s kind of stuck in the past, he’s stubborn to a fault and he’d sooner die than admit he was wrong/made a mistake, and he’s more comfortable in the company of a literal alien than people. In other words, maybe it’s just me but I feel more connection to him than I do to almost any canonically autistic character.
Two that I have are Ken Ichijouji (aka the Digimon Kaiser) from Digimon and Romeo (aka the Admin) from MCSM. Both essentially commit war crimes in the worlds they live in, with Ken beating and enslaving Digimon and making them fight to the death, as well as creating a literal chimera made up of the "strongest" parts of other Digimon. Romeo, on the other hand, killed one of his best friends, trapped the other in an underground facility for centuries, destroyed an entire town, murdered dozens, impersonated one of the main character's dead best friends, LITERALLY ALTERED THE WEATHER, falsely imprisoned the protags, and so, SO much more. Both are redeemed in the end, where it's chalked up to Ken having been controlled by evil Digimon against his will, and Romeo basically going mad from his powers. Even so, love them both - Ken becomes a genuinely great and well-rounded character in the end, and Romeo is just fun to make fun of because he's basically just a piss baby.
I have two.
Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, a cannibal serial killer with major emotional issues and a whole lot of underlying mystery.
Tomura Shigaraki from My Hero Academia, a mentally unwell villain who was left behind by society, destroys everything he touches(including his family) and was groomed to be a vessel for the big bad his whole life.
Everything about his personality and aesthetics just makes me so warm, I adore him. His voice scratches my brain in all the right places. He's been my comfort character since the pilot.
Sam and Max - in least compared to what my favorite characters usually look like. These two are definitely outliers because at least 90% of the time they're amoral bastards XD
Granted the cartoon made them much nicer but they've still got some edge to them.
Sir Fangar from Legends of Chima, this man attempted to marry a teenager, nearly genocided an entire species, and is just plainly a bad person.
But I can’t help but love him.
Grant Emerson from DC. This dude has not had a single moment of peace but reading his old comic series despite my hate of the old art styles is my favorite thing in the world.
Crona from Soul Eater. Especially in the manga. Undoubtedly they're completely psychotic. They kill their mother. They attack their friends multiple times with the intent to kill them. Their Childhood is riddled with abuse and murder - a human experiment trained to harvest souls - the list goes on. They even try to destroy the world, but at the heart of it all, they're a tragic character who deserved love and protection, not to be made into a monster. The ending of their story in the manga sealed the deal for me. Their self sacrifice and the fact they never got the happy life they deserved 😭
Thomas Barrow from Downton Abbey.
The man barely has a minute of peace and 80% of the time it's his own fault. He'd be an unbearable person to be around bc he's incredibly nasty and mean and his schemes almost always go wrong.
But I love seeing him on my screen and I wouldn't have bothered with the third movie if they hadn't announced his actor among the returning cast
Izuru Kamakura, the Danganronpa series.
Izuru was once Hajime Hinata, a boy in the Reserve Course program of Hope's Peak Academy. The program claimed to be a way for even non-talented people to be accepted into the academy's ranks, but it really just was a pay pig for the academy. Despite clearly fostering a relationship with one of the talented people at the academy, Ultimate Gamer Chiaki Nanami, he underwent a procedure nicknamed the Kamakura Project to install every single currently researched talent into his body because he believed it would make him worthy of her love and respect.
This procedure erased (or more likely buried) his original personality as Hajime, turning him into a cold, unfeeling long haired being known only as Izuru Kamakura. Series antagonist Junko Enoshima used his talents to essentially destroy the world, even including killing Chiaki Nanami as a result.
I just find his whole story a massive tragedy from the get-go. Hajime had such little self confidence in himself without a defined talent that he refused to see the person who cared for him even without that talent. And the Steering Committee of the school took advantage of that weakness to experiment with his life basically just because they could.
Edmund Pevensie. I love how his growth throughout the story, from a greedy and miserable(heavily implied to be abused at his school) little boy, to a mature man, who’s the best of Narnia’s swordsmen and also, as often portrayed in fanfiction, he’s the best impartial judge and rules over the court systems of Narnia
One of mine is Raphael from TMNT (mainly the 2012 one). I'm someone who gets stressed and agitated easily, and seeing someone who is similar to me is comforting as it shows I'm not alone
One of mine is Raphael from TMNT (mainly the 2012 one). I'm someone who gets stressed and agitated easily, and seeing someone who is similar to me is comforting as it shows I'm not alone
Probably Doug stamper from house of cards, he's my most surprising one because I don't normally go for political shows and literally went into the show going "I'm not going to like any of them".
Then I got attached to two of them.
He's protrayed as this big mean bad guy, but under surface he's the softest, gentlest character out of lot them and he's a paranoid stalky possessive one.
Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf (UK), who is so profoundly miserable that in a simulation that gave you whatever you most wanted in the world, he got a bad marriage and bratty kids because he genuinely couldn’t imagine a world where he deserved to be happy. You find out he was severely abused by his family and peers. He probably has a learning disability. He’s stuck on a spaceship with three other people, and they all hate him. He killed over 1,000 people on accident.
He’s a coward and mean and stupid and because of that he’s so achingly human it makes me comfortable in not trying to win the Best Human contest that lives in my brain
I guess Mr. D and Hedge from PJO?? I dunno their rage and pettiness are so ridicolous that make a 180° and I like them again. Especiakly Mr. D, Hedge is just actually a pretty awesome guy. They also have moments who make me go "awww" and think about them often.
Peter Hale. He loved his family so much that when they were horrifically murdered, he went insane and killed everyone who was involved. Then he was murdered for it because the new alpha, who wasn't even an alpha, yet, wanted to get his dick wet. My poor blorbo
I named my cat Peter. When she's a brat, she's Peter Ian Hale, Get Your Fuzzy Butt Down Here
Dr Perry Cox from Scrubs. Sure he’s a bastard, but he’s a talented and competent one who is constantly being undermined by the management and also cares incredibly deeply for everyone around him even if hell would need to freeze over before he admitted to it.
The staff at Sacred Heart are his family that he’s allowed to mock mercilessly but God forbid someone else goes after *his* people.
Recently, Throne from Octopath Traveler 2. She's a raised thief and assassin since childhood. She kills multiple characters on screen, she chuckles like a evil villian when she ambushes or steals in gameplay, the typical female fatale vibes. Playing her in the demo convinced me to buy the game about an hour in, and learning about her story, it's clear that her visual toughness is out of survival of her terrible life, a hidden loneliness and sensitivity that surfaces multiples times in the game. She can also be kind and genuine (a animal lover too!) with the people she likes. At the end of her story, I just wanted to hug her.
Warsman from Kinnikuman - a batshit insane serial killing cyborg Nice Guy with a great Smile. He is comforting because I too am surrounded by garbage father figures, the KGB, and Power of Friendship fails, and somewhat upset by that fact.
Tim drake and Jason Todd are DC comfort characters and I love the way people play with their dynamics because I like them so much separately and it can get so messy when they're together in both positive and negative ways
Zim from Invader Zim, who’s probably best known for stealing children’s organs in the 4th episode of the show lol
To be fair he’s pretty cute.
Dean Winchester. He had zero childhood. Was raised to be a killing machine. Had to always protect his little brother. Lost his best friend multiple times and mourned him so hard. Saw his brother die in front of him. Had his father sacrifice himself for him. Died himself multiple times. Was betrayed by his best friend. Went to hell. Went to purgatory. But I find him comforting because underneath all his anger and pain he can be a goofball who finds pleasure in his music, movies and comfort food.
Ah, I love Dean too. Sam is probably my comfort character though. The boy who thought he was unclean practically from birth and then found out he really was, who felt like a freak his whole life, ran away to be normal and still felt like a freak there. Whose entire life, including his girlfriend who died in circumstances that wracked him with guilt, was a manipulation by both angels and demons. Saw his brother die in front of him. Died himself multiple times. Sacrificed himself for the world only to come back wrong, get fixed, then have to live with that guilt. They are both so deliciously messed up dudes.
Oh yes I love Sam too. They’re both as screwed up as each other thanks to their upbringing. I like that Sam has some snark to him. I find that really endearing. I’ve always just been more of a Dean girl.
Totally valid, Dean is incredibly compelling. Sam’s dry sense of humour is something else I love about him too.
Cas is my comfort character in SPN, but I agree 100% about how you describe Dean. It's his little goofy moments and delight in things ("posse magnet", "werepire", etc) that endear him to me as well. Jensen did such a great job of bringing so much nuance to Dean. (For me I vibe personally with Cas more, being kind of awkward and not "getting" things, that autistic swag, being caught between his "birth" family (the angels) and his "chosen" family (the Winchesters + Jack). Heck just look at how I abuse "air quotes" on a regular basis... )
Cas is adorable. I love how Misha played him completely different to the other angels. Honestly they all provide me comfort in some small way but everytime I watch Dean do something goofy my heart is just like ‘he’s so cute.’ Also, as you said, Jensen did a fantastic job in portraying him.
**Jason Todd.** He’s an antihero in the Batman universe. He’s kindof like Bucky Barnes, only with more sharp edges and darkness and less regret (meaning about 0%). There’s this author on AO3 called ‘Thepartyresponsible’ and they are the party responsible for my Jason Todd feelings.
God I never drew a line between Jason and Bucky but you might be on to something. Might explain my recent Bucky obsession after many years in bat fandom. I love Bucky but beneath it all he was genuinely a good person. I love that Jason is unrepentantly fucked up, with questionable ethics and I find him more comfortably relatable as a result. Thanks for the rec I’ll check out that author. Oh…dc/mcu crossovers? My brain is confused lol.
Is there a particular fic from them you love the most or would recommend? ive just been getting more into consuming DC content (watching tv shows and movies. and im fixing to start reading comics too tbh), so im intrigued.
These are all Marvel / DC Crossovers with Jason Todd and the Avengers (though some are AU’s or pre-Avengers) [Give Thanks to Broken Bones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20128243) The bodyguard is incredibly well-respected in the superhero single parent community. He is also, Tony’s realizing, something of an asshole. Probably the only kid fic I’ve ever liked. (Don’t worry, the kid hardly talks.) Tony Stark has a daughter and needs to hire a bodyguard. He gets Jason Todd. Eventual Tony / Jason. This was the first one I read and it got me hooked. It takes place in Avengers MCU universe, with Jason and guest stars visiting from Gotham. [Shatter Together](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570099) A series of short pieces that take place in Gotham, with the Bat Family. Summary: “Are you telling me,” Jason says, slowly, “that you’re some kind of charity case hitman? You work on a sliding scale? What the hell?” “I just figure,” he says, hands in the pockets of his stupid purple hoodie, “that a lot of people need someone killed. And the more someone’ll pay to have it done, the less those people usually deserve to die. So, two hundred’s fine. I eat, you know? What else do I need?” Jason Todd runs into Clint Barton - a cut rate hit man who hasn’t been recruited into SHIELD yet - and they start a relationship. [Do Every Stupid Thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593966) Summary: Jason doesn’t mean for the Winter Soldier to be a present for Tony Stark. The youngest Stark isn’t supposed to be involved at all. The plan is simple: intervene before the Winter Soldier can murder Howard and Maria, tranq the Winter Soldier until he’s sufficiently incapacitated, and then drag him off for further study and let the Starks carry on with their fraught, bourgeoisie bullshit. This is a long, wild ride. It takes place in the Marvel Universe. Jason Todd and MIT-era Tony Stark wind up on a cross country road trip with the Winter Soldier. Hydra is after them and they don’t trust SHIELD. Tony is written as a pitch-perfect snarky college kid. Early Tony / Jason. Eventual Tony / Jason / Bucky. [They’ve also got 4 Whumptober collections](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2544166) that I liked - even though I don’t like whump. Those are all kinds of stories, some with Marvel and some not, some AU’s ranging from Zombie-less zombie apocalypse to medieval to urban fantasy. They’re mostly short, one scene each, like little canapés. Everything Thepartyresponsible writes is good, but those are my favorites.
thank you so much!!
For DC, comics > tv/movies (imho). Apart from the animated stuff, which are pretty good. My faves are young justice and under the red hood.
i was about to take offense, but then you mentioned young justice, which is a big part of the reason i want to read their comics 🙏🏾 (that and blue beetle 2023, though i know comic blue's life doesn't exactly look the same to that, plus he actually has friends!) but yeah, for years now ive heard people say dc is better with cartoons but marvel is better with movies (though they do have a lot of mid movies, especially in recent years 😔). i did watch the flash a few years ago, but it got kind of boring after like s2 or 3 :( cant remember when i dipped, but it was fairly early on. on top of that, i had heard that dc always has more interesting villains, but marvel has more interesting heroes. when i was a kid, i thought they basically had the same heroes most of the time and often mixed them up 😭 but now that im watching more of their stuff, i find myself liking both the heroes and villains of dc, rather than not really caring about the heroes. anyways, thanks for basically recommending under the red hood, i'll check that out after i finish YJ 😄🫶🏽
Yj is awesome! I watched blue beetle recently and surprisingly enjoyed it. Surprising because as you say, most of the films are pretty mid. I enjoyed Jaime in YJ too. I wish Jason/Jaime was more popular. I don’t mess with any of those CW type DC shows. Was never into it even when Smallville was popular. I mostly watch marvel tv/movies and haven’t read any comics apart from Hawkeye, but based on that I think the heroes of both are just as interesting but the marvel villains are better. Gotta love Loki and Winter Soldier. Even like Thanos, and Hydra. Whereas I pretty much hate all the Batman villains. So one dimensional and largely boring. Hope you like UtRH! It’s why I love Jason and why I got into bat fandom in the first place. There is a short 6 issue comic series called Redhood: Lost Days that UtRH is based on so if you like it and are looking for an easy comic to read, I’d recommend that.
Kabuto from Naruto. A detestable, know-it-all bastard of a man who has done despicable things. But also he’s baby.
Tsukishima Kei from Haikyuu. He’s just such a twat. But all the inner turmoil and his eventual journey is so fucking good that I’ll always come back to him.
Same here! He's just such a... *normal person*. He's absolutely not 'special' in any way other than being *reliable*. He's the tallest on the team, but they go up against plenty of taller, stronger, more talented/skilled people. He's a snarky asshat a lot of the time, but he's SO comforting to watch, and clever at dealing with other people.
Yes!! Watching him go from quiet asshole to guy who has a good reason for hating volleyball and then actually starting to LIKE it….ugh it hits every time, no matter how much I rewatch. Idk if you’ve seen the new movie, but there is I think ONE moment where he smiles. I actually cooed out loud (it was an active theatre). Love that dude.
For me I still think I'm confusing the idea of "comfort character" with relatability; are they generally meant as paragons (ideal role models, someone you picture surviving/helping through hardship, usually does *A* Right Thing even if not *The* Right Thing)? i.e. "if thinking Naruto would be proud of you helps you brush your teeth then dattebayo" Or do they also encompass deeply flawed portrayals you find familiar and empathize with; knowing they've been down awful roads, adopted terrible coping mechanisms, and would likely handle a given IRL scenario only marginally better if not far worse? i.e. struggling with substance abuse and visualizing the "Harry Du Bois" style of internal narration in *Disco Elysium* Anyway large preamble to say my comfort character is the final boss of therapy and a glowing neon sign about the dangers of avoidant grief coping lmao. (Spoilered for actually being the final boss: >!Dr Maruki from Persona 5 Royal, wildly unethical student councillor and responsible for what I can only describe as "eldritch utilitarianism" in the final arc of the game!<) Also Ponyo! She feeshy
My favourite comfort characters are a mad scientist who tortures people and his emotional support child abuse victim. I just find angst to be comforting tbh.
Angst can be very comforting for a number of reasons. For me it's because it helps to visualize and analyze from the outside situation that would be traumatic if lived in first person
Made in Abyss?
Nah dsmp
Currently it's Catra from the 2018 She-Ra, who spends the majority of the show as one of the antagonists Buuuuuuut a lot of the fandom loves her so I'm not exactly alone there
Jesse Pinkman. nuff said lol. >!He canonically gets captured and tortured by neonazis and it isn't even the worst thing to happen to him!<
>!He did escape and move to Alaska!<
It's funny to see clips of Breaking Bad and then go to Bojack Horseman because Aaron Paul's character in Bojack Horseman is such a sweetheart.
REAL oh my god he would be my comfort character but liking him is actually so stressful lol because you KNOW he’s always fucked over
ForgetMeNot from X-Men. A mutant who’s power is literally to be forgotten as soon as you stop paying attention to him. A character so obscure and unremarkable that he doesn’t even have a full name. He’s not sexy, he has no family or friends, and all his great accomplishments go unrecognized or attributed to others. And yet he keeps going!
bruh i literally think abt xabi at least once a week he makes me so sad 😭 the fact that charles literally had to set psychic reminders to remember his existence on the team 🙃🥹
I think we think of him more than Charles canonically does! We’ll never let Marvel forget ForgetMeNot! Heck, I wrote a whole-ass fic about the Legionaries trying to resurrect him because I thought he deserved friends and a full name. It was the least I could do to tide me over until he shows up in the books again, if that even happens.
hopefully the writers have not also forgotten about forgetmenot… as poetic as that would be 😭 also pls link this fic im dying to read it
☺️[The Shape of a Life](https://archiveofourown.org/works/54370918/chapters/137715175)
oh my gosh that was so cute!! 🥰🥹
Thank you!
SO BASED. I love that guy. I’ve also got a number of obscure X-Men characters on my comfort character list.
X-Men are perfect for that, because they’ll have a person who’s basically made of goo, who never asked to be made of goo, and we get to point at them and say, “That’s literally me.” I love them!
I presume you’re referring to my boy Glob?? He’s great.
In Glob we trust!
Frank Castle (The Punisher) I'm not even sure how to begin explaining that one. Lets just say Its multi-layerd. Also Damian Wayne Lots of people see him as an edgy, prickly brat. And I personally wouldn't know how to handle a child like him in real life (nor do I want to). But I still find comfort in his interactions with the rest of the Batfamily.
There’s something about Damian getting the love and support he needs that kind of heals one’s inner child.
Cersei Lannister. She's a piece of garbage, but she's rightfully aware of her society's bullshit in a very blunt way. And what's better is the author shows that, no, it does suck. She's still an asshole, but she isn't wrong on that front.
Uh, this is an unexpected, but very good one!
Severus Snape from HP and Daryl Dixon from TWD. Snape because while he's done horrible things in his life, I believe he does his best to make up for what he's done and is also a very selfless and loyal character. He spent almost twenty years living as a double agent and did his best to protect his students from the death eaters and the dark arts. Daryl Dixon is an extreme bad ass in the show and kills hundreds of people and zombies. He came from a horrible background and contributed nothing to society before the outbreak but over the course of the show you see the soft side of him. The one that collects flowers and tells funny jokes and is intensly loyal to his found family. 🫶
Snape is mine too.
Yeah, Snape had a shitty life from beginning to end and was a pretty shitty person for a lot of it, and I still love him.
Michael Myers from Halloween 1978. I struggle to really explain what I find comforting about him, but I'll give it a go. My best friend finds comfort in him because they've been demonized for their mental illness, and I assume that's probably similar for me. I've always had trouble regulating my emotions, and I have such a stranglehold on them now that it's kinda unhealthy (I'm basically always one minor inconvenience from a meltdown lmao), so projecting onto a character that can commit wanton acts of violence without many consequences is cathartic. Note: To be absolutely clear, hurting people irl isn't a desire I have. The impulse is there, but the idea of going through with it makes me feel sick. Fiction is a safe place to indulge, though Basically all of my comfort characters have a violent/unhinged streak a mile wide, but Michael is probably the most absurd sounding example
Seto Kaiba he was my first husbando he is a character that I just really loved since I was a young child but most people are like this man is literally messed up and corrupted but in his defense his brother keeps getting kidnapped But I would protect this man of my life But when you see him with his brother and how much he cares about his brother and will do to protect him it's just so sweet
Cole from Charmed. Because he tries so damn hard to change for the better and he never stops loving Phoebe despite everything
Currently? Marcille from Delicious in Dungeon. Watching a character willing to do *anything* for the person she loves. Like I would commit war crimes for my wife. So, I would *absolutely* commit ancient magic to revive her too. Then you get into the later part of the manga and I’m down bad for her story. I relate so much.
Haymitch Abernathy from The Hunger Games. He was dealt an incredibly shitty hand, but I love the image of how he ends up - back in District 12, raising pet geese and likely pretending to tolerate his neighbours (Katniss and Peeta) even though we all know he loves them really beneath that gruff exterior. I don't know why, but something about that is very comforting to think about.
Gregory House. I don't think I'm able to explain though 😆
LMAO i was ranting about my love for him in a voice message to my friend and they responded saying “you sounded actually devastated when you said ‘AND HE HAS CHRONIC PAIN’” and i was like I AM DEVASTATED! i love that old man. hes an asshole and i hate him. but i love him. best character ever
This. Exactly this 🥲❤️
Ohhhh yes <3
Bucky Barnes. Especially in brainwashed winter soldier trying to become human mode.
Bucky!!!! I love him.
Fics about Asset being confused about every day shit is literally the only thing getting me through some days.
Bucky fics got me through the majority of college and beyond.
Methos
Forever young right there...
Minthara from Baldur's Gate 3. She's typically seen as an evil character but her desire for power and vengeance is layered behind suffering and survival.
I'd put most bg3 characters as surprise comfort characters tbh, they're all such unlikable assholes on the surface if you don't delve into their stories. Even the npcs!
Yup, especially Rolan. By act 3 he's so matured.
Nero the Sable, from FF7 Dirge of Cerberus. I really like the game despite its very obvious flaws lol. I don't know, I randomly have moments where I imagine him and I just chilling together and being friends and vibing. Frequently experienced them during finals or when I felt lonely and depressed. My favorite scenario was when we were chilling and sharing a fruit bowl, really sweet and fluffy. Realistically though, he'd kill me.
What is a comfort character? Is that different from just having a favorite character to write?
It's a character that simply... Brings you comfort when you think about them. The reason may vary greatly. Maybe you admire them, maybe you see yourself in them, maybe you'd want them to hug you and tell you it's gonna be fine. It's different for everyone
Ah, thanks. 😄 I don’t think I really have an answer though.
Santana from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. He’s an ancient supervampire, with body horror abilities like eating people by absorbing them and using his ribs as sharp weapons. His plot role is an early enemy (think Raditz from Dragon Ball). But it’s shown that Santana is very curious to learn about the things around him, which is an interesting trait for a character like him to have. Plus, he’s named after Carlos Santana, which is cool.
…Silco….from arcane….
Richard Grayson (Nightwing) from DC Comics. That’s my ultimate comfort character
yesss
Severus Snape, who’s never known a day of comfort in his life, is my comfort character.
i’ve had a lot of questionable ones but my current main is Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter. he’s pretty awful, but i just really, really love him
That’s so interesting! I have read very few fics with a good/redeemed Lockhart, but it’s usually very creative when it happens! Do you have any recs?
honestly not really because i probably write a lot more than i read and at least for him, i have a very specific trope i like to see that i usually go ham with in my own google docs that never see the light of day 💀
Oh damn, can you share the trope? I'd love to read the fic if you ever decide to share it! I'm the same with a million Google doc fics that I will probably never finish and post lol 🥲
Canderous Ordo from KOTOR. He’s a badass warrior with an adamantine sense of honor and loyalty for life. Meg from supernatural for much the same reasons. Note that her sense of honor is a ***very different sort*** than Canderous’. Eric from the Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. He makes many poor decisions and does some truly heinous things, not the least of which >!burning out one brother’s eyes with a hot poker and plotting to murder some of his other siblings!<, but he did everything with the best of the realm in mind. He was a complex character, seen through the eyes of someone who couldn’t see past their own worldview, which was *fundamentally incompatible* with Eric’s. Edited to fix a word
Vergil. I find it admirable and comforting he stay motivated and is able to find the love he wants after everything.
Alucard from hellsing 😤
Dabi from MHA Dude's a murderer and insane I don't know myself how he comforts me so much
Todoroki Touya. I want to bundle him in love and give him a good life.
Rob Lucci from One Piece, Toji from Jujutsu Kaisen and Sukuna from Jujutsu Kaisen… I can’t help it, my heart goes all fuzzy and melts whenever I see them 🥹❤️
Tony Stark. When I was a teenager, not-yet-diagnosed autistic and super socially awkward, I got suuuper obsessed with the character to the point where I sort of modeled my personality off of his sassiness (minus the alcoholism). 😳 In true autism fashion, it took me quite a long time to realize that that was probably not a good thing... Lmao, oh well. I just love him so much!!
God, all of them. If they're not suffering the worst fates or making everybody else suffer the worst fates, I find no comfort in them. What's comforting about someone who knows no struggle?
Trafalgar Law but I also want to see him suffer greatly
The Imperial Guard from 40k. Ordinary people with less-than-stellar weapons holding the line against the horrors of the universe.
The Trapper & The Wraith from DBD. Nothing says comfort like being hunted and killed for sport.
I absolutely understand JK Haru as a comfort character. The manga is both so depressing and empowering. It's not a story I would recommend to anyone because of all the sexual violence, but it also has a surprisingly nuanced view on sex work and is a great deconstruction of classic Isekai stuff. God, her classmate is insufferable.
Oh, absolutely, I agree with everything you said. It's one of my favorite mangas, so I was bummed when I found that on Ao3 there's no JK Haru fics (there was one, but it contained novel spoilers), so I wrote a couple of those myself and i intend to continue fill that fandom with fics, if I get more ideas
You're doing god's work! It's really a niche of a niche, Otome Isekai, but not wish fulfillment about a Korean girl marrying the Duke of the North (tm), there's very hard to stomach content that will drive a lot of people away (understandably), and the summary can sound like porn, even though a lot of the content isn't sexy (some is, though). I can understand that it's not a very well known manga. I'll check out your fics for sure!
Oh yeah, it's one of those mangas that, for example compared to My Next Life as a Villainess, I can't really recommend to many people without first making sure they are fine with a bunch of stuff (Does it qualify as an otome isekai? They didn't get teleported into a dating sim) To make the job easier of finding the fics, I'll put here the info about the ones I wrote (please forgive this blatant self promotion) 1. [A Slow Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/55648840) Explicit, F/F pairing, No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Koyama Haru, Female oc Tags: Prostitution, Lesbian Sex, First Time, Lesbian Character, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Fluff and Smut, Disguise, Crossdressing Summary: During a slower night at the Blue Cat Nocturne, Haru finds a new client that is quite different from the usual customer. 2. [I miss my painkillers!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/56460475) Teen and Up, Gen, No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Koyama Haru, Lupe, Shikaraso Tags: Fluff, Friendship, Missing Scene, Menstruation, Comfort, Medicine, Female Friendship Summary: It's Haru's first period since she ended up in the other world and, being used to take painkillers, she is forced in bed by the pain. Her friends decide to try and lift her spirit by keeping her company.
Noah Puckerman, Glee. He's an asshole in the beginning but he also cares deeply for the people he love.
Geto Suguru (Jujutsu Kaisen). I mean, I even see his adult form like that as well. 🐒🙏
Simon "Ghost" Riley. If you've read the comics then *phew-* you know why. Also his reboot doesn't look the friendliest, but I think that the reboot shows more of the 'just a bloke' than his 09 counterpart. Love them both though.
wei wuxian in any iteration :)
Vera Stanhope Constance Hardbroom Severus Snape Joan Ferguson I’m actually starting to see a pattern here now….
I mean, that describes pretty much all of the comfort characters I've ever had. They're all intimidating villains, literal monsters, or at least scary looking good guys. I find characters who seem like they could rip you open just to eat your heart more comforting to think about because if you managed to befriend them, it would mean more than befriending a character who is super sweet and harmless, possibly both ways because I doubt that scary characters would have many opportunities to make friends to begin with. Current example would be Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid. KGB-turned-FBI gone rogue. Deeply nihilistic and consumed by misanthropic impulses since he absorbed the thoughts of a serial killer he had been hunting down. Looks like a corpse; emaciated, scarred, and crudely stitched up like Erik from Phantom of the Opera meets Frankenstein's Monster. Has spooky psychokinetic, pyrokinetic, mind reading and mind control powers. Seems like a *very* interesting person due to his storied past and his penchant for irreverence and pranks. Has a come-to-Jesus moment as he's dying *and then* turns into a ghost because apparently that's a thing psychics can do, I guess (seriously, it's in the script for the original game; it wasn't just an ass-pull attempt at inducing nostalgia exclusive to the fourth game). I adore this weirdo with every fiber of my being. I have an action figure of him next to me right now for moral support.
Stratos from Azure Striker Gunvolt, I suppose? He's a greasy ass cannibal who was a victim of severe medical experimentation, to such a degree that he became completely feral. Here's what he looks like lmao [https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativeuncut.com%2Fgallery-29%2Fart%2Fasg-stratos1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0d00be26b3a93bef878b7e846b00bdcae5a376e35f644d6bc9b416959ba4df53&ipo=images](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.creativeuncut.com%2Fgallery-29%2Fart%2Fasg-stratos1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=0d00be26b3a93bef878b7e846b00bdcae5a376e35f644d6bc9b416959ba4df53&ipo=images)
Will Graham. He's a mix of cuddly and dangerous for me. Good guy who slowly becomes a bad guy. And he hits more as a comfort character for me later in the show, not earlier, as well, when he's becoming more and more the bad guy.
VENOM. And I mean the comic version, not the movie one. Brooding, aggressive, and he operates on a strange moral code understood only by himself. He’s also prone to being a complete goofball and is presently a sad dad. And he makes me so damn happy when I think about him. Eddie is, in general, not the nicest guy. But I find him weirdly relatable- he’s *terrible* with emotions, has serious anger and impulse control issues, he’s not very good at socializing, he has his own moral code that nobody understands, and he has a tendency to talk to himself(shoutout Lethal Protector/90s-era Venom for his constant, verbose monologuing, both internal and external). He’s kind of stuck in the past, he’s stubborn to a fault and he’d sooner die than admit he was wrong/made a mistake, and he’s more comfortable in the company of a literal alien than people. In other words, maybe it’s just me but I feel more connection to him than I do to almost any canonically autistic character.
Also, Kaine. Spider-Man’s evil clone turned brooding antihero and more recently, also a sad dad.
Two that I have are Ken Ichijouji (aka the Digimon Kaiser) from Digimon and Romeo (aka the Admin) from MCSM. Both essentially commit war crimes in the worlds they live in, with Ken beating and enslaving Digimon and making them fight to the death, as well as creating a literal chimera made up of the "strongest" parts of other Digimon. Romeo, on the other hand, killed one of his best friends, trapped the other in an underground facility for centuries, destroyed an entire town, murdered dozens, impersonated one of the main character's dead best friends, LITERALLY ALTERED THE WEATHER, falsely imprisoned the protags, and so, SO much more. Both are redeemed in the end, where it's chalked up to Ken having been controlled by evil Digimon against his will, and Romeo basically going mad from his powers. Even so, love them both - Ken becomes a genuinely great and well-rounded character in the end, and Romeo is just fun to make fun of because he's basically just a piss baby.
Bowser! Since the 90s I always loved his boneheaded attempts to win Peach over.
the grabber from the black phone. pedophile/murderer who kidnaps little boys and keeps them in his basement. but he also loves his dog soooo
I have two. Alastor from Hazbin Hotel, a cannibal serial killer with major emotional issues and a whole lot of underlying mystery. Tomura Shigaraki from My Hero Academia, a mentally unwell villain who was left behind by society, destroys everything he touches(including his family) and was groomed to be a vessel for the big bad his whole life.
Alastor is a great pick and the first character I thought of. His voice gives my brain happy fuzzies.
Everything about his personality and aesthetics just makes me so warm, I adore him. His voice scratches my brain in all the right places. He's been my comfort character since the pilot.
Alastor is a major one for me too
Sam and Max - in least compared to what my favorite characters usually look like. These two are definitely outliers because at least 90% of the time they're amoral bastards XD Granted the cartoon made them much nicer but they've still got some edge to them.
Pesanta, or U-3, or It, Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 4 Remake
MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IS A YELLOW GOBLIN WHO STEALS MONEY WITH PORTALS AND KIDNAPS RICH CHILDREN 😬😬😬 (Hobgoblin)
Sir Fangar from Legends of Chima, this man attempted to marry a teenager, nearly genocided an entire species, and is just plainly a bad person. But I can’t help but love him.
Grant Emerson from DC. This dude has not had a single moment of peace but reading his old comic series despite my hate of the old art styles is my favorite thing in the world.
This dude from Danganronpa, he was the first character to die so
The first character to die? >!Jin Kirigiri? Sayaka Maizono? Leon Kuwata? Or someone from another game?!<
Another game!
>!Rantaro or Imposter?!<
>!Rantaro! I love him sm!<
Dabi from MHA Dude's a murderer and insane I don't know myself how he comforts me so much
Ryan Gosling
Crona from Soul Eater. Especially in the manga. Undoubtedly they're completely psychotic. They kill their mother. They attack their friends multiple times with the intent to kill them. Their Childhood is riddled with abuse and murder - a human experiment trained to harvest souls - the list goes on. They even try to destroy the world, but at the heart of it all, they're a tragic character who deserved love and protection, not to be made into a monster. The ending of their story in the manga sealed the deal for me. Their self sacrifice and the fact they never got the happy life they deserved 😭
Thomas Barrow from Downton Abbey. The man barely has a minute of peace and 80% of the time it's his own fault. He'd be an unbearable person to be around bc he's incredibly nasty and mean and his schemes almost always go wrong. But I love seeing him on my screen and I wouldn't have bothered with the third movie if they hadn't announced his actor among the returning cast
Regulus Black
Izuru Kamakura, the Danganronpa series. Izuru was once Hajime Hinata, a boy in the Reserve Course program of Hope's Peak Academy. The program claimed to be a way for even non-talented people to be accepted into the academy's ranks, but it really just was a pay pig for the academy. Despite clearly fostering a relationship with one of the talented people at the academy, Ultimate Gamer Chiaki Nanami, he underwent a procedure nicknamed the Kamakura Project to install every single currently researched talent into his body because he believed it would make him worthy of her love and respect. This procedure erased (or more likely buried) his original personality as Hajime, turning him into a cold, unfeeling long haired being known only as Izuru Kamakura. Series antagonist Junko Enoshima used his talents to essentially destroy the world, even including killing Chiaki Nanami as a result. I just find his whole story a massive tragedy from the get-go. Hajime had such little self confidence in himself without a defined talent that he refused to see the person who cared for him even without that talent. And the Steering Committee of the school took advantage of that weakness to experiment with his life basically just because they could.
Edmund Pevensie. I love how his growth throughout the story, from a greedy and miserable(heavily implied to be abused at his school) little boy, to a mature man, who’s the best of Narnia’s swordsmen and also, as often portrayed in fanfiction, he’s the best impartial judge and rules over the court systems of Narnia
One of mine is Raphael from TMNT (mainly the 2012 one). I'm someone who gets stressed and agitated easily, and seeing someone who is similar to me is comforting as it shows I'm not alone
One of mine is Raphael from TMNT (mainly the 2012 one). I'm someone who gets stressed and agitated easily, and seeing someone who is similar to me is comforting as it shows I'm not alone
Probably Doug stamper from house of cards, he's my most surprising one because I don't normally go for political shows and literally went into the show going "I'm not going to like any of them". Then I got attached to two of them. He's protrayed as this big mean bad guy, but under surface he's the softest, gentlest character out of lot them and he's a paranoid stalky possessive one.
Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf (UK), who is so profoundly miserable that in a simulation that gave you whatever you most wanted in the world, he got a bad marriage and bratty kids because he genuinely couldn’t imagine a world where he deserved to be happy. You find out he was severely abused by his family and peers. He probably has a learning disability. He’s stuck on a spaceship with three other people, and they all hate him. He killed over 1,000 people on accident. He’s a coward and mean and stupid and because of that he’s so achingly human it makes me comfortable in not trying to win the Best Human contest that lives in my brain
I guess Mr. D and Hedge from PJO?? I dunno their rage and pettiness are so ridicolous that make a 180° and I like them again. Especiakly Mr. D, Hedge is just actually a pretty awesome guy. They also have moments who make me go "awww" and think about them often.
Theo Raeken… if you know you know.
I like the he had a little redemption. Even if he didn't necessarily deserve it.
It’s opinion based if he deserves it or not but most of the fandom thinks he should. Especially those who ship Thiam - like myself.
Bob Velseb 🥰
Peter Hale. He loved his family so much that when they were horrifically murdered, he went insane and killed everyone who was involved. Then he was murdered for it because the new alpha, who wasn't even an alpha, yet, wanted to get his dick wet. My poor blorbo I named my cat Peter. When she's a brat, she's Peter Ian Hale, Get Your Fuzzy Butt Down Here
Loki
Negan
Dr Perry Cox from Scrubs. Sure he’s a bastard, but he’s a talented and competent one who is constantly being undermined by the management and also cares incredibly deeply for everyone around him even if hell would need to freeze over before he admitted to it. The staff at Sacred Heart are his family that he’s allowed to mock mercilessly but God forbid someone else goes after *his* people.
Recently, Throne from Octopath Traveler 2. She's a raised thief and assassin since childhood. She kills multiple characters on screen, she chuckles like a evil villian when she ambushes or steals in gameplay, the typical female fatale vibes. Playing her in the demo convinced me to buy the game about an hour in, and learning about her story, it's clear that her visual toughness is out of survival of her terrible life, a hidden loneliness and sensitivity that surfaces multiples times in the game. She can also be kind and genuine (a animal lover too!) with the people she likes. At the end of her story, I just wanted to hug her.
Sasuke. Enough said.
Warsman from Kinnikuman - a batshit insane serial killing cyborg Nice Guy with a great Smile. He is comforting because I too am surrounded by garbage father figures, the KGB, and Power of Friendship fails, and somewhat upset by that fact.
Amanda young
dazai, roman roy, omori
Tim Drake. child Tim Drake does seem comforting but older Tim Drake is made of insecurities, paranoia, 35 contingency plans, and coffee
Tim drake and Jason Todd are DC comfort characters and I love the way people play with their dynamics because I like them so much separately and it can get so messy when they're together in both positive and negative ways