The Comfort Character

I've sat through three of you now. I've heard the bloke who felt sorry for the readers. I've heard the woman who called them parasites. I've heard the other bloke who talked like we're all down the pub together and told you they're just people who like a thing a bit too much. Lovely. Very friendly. Very forgiving.

I'm not the forgiving one. I'm the one who's going to tell you what these people are actually like, without the gloves on.

They are not just people who like a thing. They are people who have turned liking a thing into their entire personality. That's the bit. That's the thing nobody's said yet.

You meet somebody at a party. You ask them what they're into. A normal person says "oh, I like football" or "I'm into hiking." They've got hobbies. They've got a life.

A fanfiction fan doesn't have hobbies. A fanfiction fan has a fandom. And the difference is the whole difference between a person who reads and a person who has made reading their identity.

A normal person who reads enjoys a good story, finishes it, thinks about it, moves on. They read a book a month. They've got other things going on.

A fanfiction fan doesn't read one story and move on. A fanfiction fan reads the same two characters, over and over, in a hundred different versions, for years. They don't want new stories. They don't want to be surprised. They want the same two people, in the same little world, doing the same sort of thing, and they want it forever.

And I want you to think about what that says about them. It says they have found their comfort and they are not leaving it. It says they would rather revisit the same familiar thing a thousand times than risk one single new thing that might not work out. It says they have discovered the emotional equivalent of their favourite chair, and they have decided to spend the rest of their life sitting in it.

They have made a whole hobby out of refusing to try new things. And they're so proud of it. They've got a name for it. They call it their "comfort fandom." Their comfort. Like a toddler with a blanket. Like a dog with a favourite toy. They have, at their age, with their jobs and their bills, a comfort character. They have a little person in their head who they go to when they need a hug.

You're a grown adult and you have a comfort character. That's like having a comfort teddy bear. And they're not embarrassed about it. They'll tell you "oh, he's my comfort character, I just love him so much," like it's the most normal thing in the world.

It is the most normal thing in the world if you're seven. If you're thirty, and you have a comfort character, you have admitted, in one sentence, that you have found a way to feel loved and safe that does not require any actual person to be involved.

That's the dig. The entire hobby of these people, the whole massive worldwide thing, is a way to feel all the good stuff — love, safety, excitement, belonging, even a bit of lust, let's not pretend otherwise — without ever once having to do it with a real, actual, complicated human being. They have figured out how to have a love life that never lets them down, never argues with them, never has bad breath in the morning, and never, ever leaves. They have perfected the art of loving something that cannot love them back, and cannot hurt them, and cannot disappoint them, and they have convinced themselves this is better.

And maybe, for them, it is. Maybe it's the only way they know how to feel it.

But it looks like a person who has decided that the safest place to love is somewhere that can never love them back. It looks like a person who has made a deal with themselves: I will feel everything, as long as I never have to feel it for real.

They'll say "I just love these characters." I'll say, no, you love the way they make you feel, and you love that they make you feel it on your own terms, and you love that you never have to risk anything.

They'll say "I'm just a fan." I'll say, no, you've made fans of people who don't exist, and you've made yourself a fan of your own safety.

And they'll nod, and they'll smile, and they'll go back to their comfort character. Because they know I'm right. They always know. They just don't want to stop.

And honestly? I don't blame them. It's a lovely way to feel. It's just not real. That's all. It's not real.

And that's my whole set in one line: it's not real, and they've convinced themselves it's everything.