This post has content warnings for: discourse on the "Mr. Melancholy" archetype from the 2024 horror film "I Saw the TV Glow" with extensive spoilers for the movie and for Dave Sim's "Cerebus" and for C. S. Lewis's "That Hideous Strength".
I'll add a grace note to this piece: one of the most striking moments in Lars von Trier's Melancholia comes when the protagonist Justine (superlatively realized by Kirsten Dunst) says quietly but confidently that there's no life outside Earth. This comes in the second half of the movie as the "Melancholia" disaster slowly builds and she seems to be the only person at peace with it.
As an expression of despair it's very powerful: "We are alone. There is nothing else." I used to live with that....It's not true. We are not stranded here.
~Chara
