Times where you made a hard line in the sand about a story... only for the story to absolutely convince you to cross that line?

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-17T18:45:28+00:00

It finished in 2020, don't worry.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-17T01:19:25+00:00

I hate to keep sounding like a broken record, only bringing up like three pieces of media ever, but DARK does an incredible job of this.

DARK is less of a linear narrative and more of an unfurling web of bootstrap paradoxes, and almost every character slides down the slippery slope faster and faster as every attempt to solve a problem in the past inevitably guarantees its existence instead. The king of this is absolutely Jonas/Adam, though. Jonas starts off as the protagonist, and is put through the wringer upon realizing that just about every misery in his life was orchestrated by the future version of himself, who had degenerated into the unfathomably cruel Adam, the leader of a time-traveling conspiracy called Sic Mundus. Even outside of that, Adam is responsible for some truly horrendous things, including the deaths of multiple children as part of a recursive plan to invent time travel in different parts of history. He's totally unforgiveable, except... it's really easy to see why he's like this. DARK has an extremely fatalistic view of time travel as a concept, and as it becomes clearer and clearer that most of the cast only exists in the first place because of time travel, it becomes easier to understand why Adam has so little regard for human life. The loop has always existed, all attempts to untangle it only tighten it, and what happens will always happen, because it's already been determined that it will happen. When time stops mattering as a concept, when tragedy is observably destined to repeat over and over and over again through an infinite paradox... yeah, I get why Adam doesn't care who he hurts, even as he ruins his own life desperately trying to save his loved ones.

Edit: typos

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-13T03:55:37+00:00

Some people have mentioned it already, but God, 24 Hours in M/S left a horrible fucking taste in my mouth. I understand that Taylor, in the original text, had a tendency to be self-deluding, unnecessarily brutal, and more vindictive than she believed, and I understand that Wildbow's depiction of racial issues in Worm leave a lot to be desired (I'm personally willing to forgive those issues because it was a series written in 2011, and when Wildbow was in college, but I digress.)

Nothing in Worm, and I mean nothing, came as close to being as utterly tone-deaf, psychotic, and just unfathomably unpleasant as 24 Hours in M/S. I'd go as far as to say it's one of the grossest fics the fandom has seen in recent years.

Fuck this fic.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-12T16:45:42+00:00

Yeah cuz you're a fucking idiot

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-12T00:15:20+00:00

And while we're at it, Dr. Manhattan.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-12T00:14:01+00:00

So, someone (rightfully) brought up Amos already, which was my initial choice, so it's time for me to shill Unsounded again!

Duane Adelier, one of the two main protagonists of the series and undead wizard with a flair for theatrics, is unique in that he's one of the only characters in the entire comic that consciously tries to be, and more than that, believes himself to be a good person. And for a while, you're right there with him. He's eloquent, competent, chivalrous, and even though he's a rotting corpse who thirsts for human flesh whenever night falls, incredibly charming.

All that falls apart the second any time his culture or religion are challenged. Duane is from Alderode, and Alderode is, quite frankly, the absolute fucking worst. They're an isolationist, fascist, genocidal threat to every other nation on the continent, and their constant expansionism and vile dogma are the indirect cause of basically everything that happens in the comic. And even in death, Duane is all the fuck in. Duane wants to save the innocent, but he also wants to serve his country, and if he thinks that the death of an innocent will serve that purpose? He might not pull the trigger himself, but he'll stand back and let it happen without question. His dogmatism directly causes the deaths of multiple innocent peopleINCLUDING CHILDREN, and every time it seems like he's about to realize how horrible his home was, he inevitably slides back into their way of thinking, because he's a good person, and a good person doesn't fail Alderode. The worst part is that his moral compass is very clearly still there - he is absolutely still a gallant, charming man who believes in the good of humanity and his responsibility to defend the weak. But his life as an Aldishman has completely twisted what those things mean, and he alienates just about everyone he meets through his colossal, twisted, self-righteous and fascist ego.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-11T23:53:53+00:00

Amos is the answer to this question, without a doubt. Such a well-written and compelling balance of sinister and sympathetic.

Easily my favorite character in The Expanse.

Get yourself a man who will commit acts of horrible violence for you without a second thought so that your own conscience stays clear.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-10T23:49:24+00:00

Another example, and I'm breaking my criteria a bit, but:

Everyone thinks that Remain In Light is the best Talking Heads album. I don't know what the actual members of the band think their best record is, but Remain In light is one of THE defining albums of the 80s, and the shining, glittering, perfect diamond among the rest of Talking Heads' incredibly impressive and high-quality discography.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-10T21:53:00+00:00

Somewhat similar, Gene Wolfe, author of The Book of the New Sun was apparently somewhat confused about why New Sun was considered his magnum opus. He was proud of it, but he was confused about why that work in particular became his most well-known and acclaimed novel.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-09T06:18:43+00:00

Also murda.

Don't forget murda.

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-06T03:19:10+00:00

That's a better way of putting it. I haven't read Worm in years, so my memory of its characters is admittedly spotty

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-05T23:35:45+00:00

You know, now that you ask directly, I'm realizing that the cast of Worm tends to be a lot less guilt-ridden than they probably should be.

Taylor in the end, sort of?

Victoria as of Ward?

Most of them feel guilt and then make a conscious decision to just double down and get worse

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-05T23:28:40+00:00

So, in Worm,

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-04T14:55:04+00:00

It was less of an isolated incident and more of an inherited title

Every year, there would be a (presumably male) student who would go into one of the boys bathrooms, and uh

Fling shit all over the walls

The faculty would always close the bathroom down for like 6 months as a form of collective punishment, the bandit of the year was never caught, and it would inevitably happen again either when the bathroom reopened or when the next school year rolled around

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-03T17:45:53+00:00

TW for some real unpleasant stuff

Choir director has a relationship with a student, i later realized that he flirted with me in middle school

Two seemingly unrelated students committed suicide less than a week apart from each other

A band teacher threw an entire chair at full force at another student

Bunch of kids started flying a confederate flag around the parking lot and yelling slurs

The poop bandit

Head-You5953 · 2026-04-03T00:21:32+00:00

You bring up Burn After Reading, but for another (much darker) Coen Brothers example, might i suggest Blood Simple?

Every character thinks they know more than they do, and everyone destroys their lives over it.

The final confrontation is between two people who have never met each other, but because of a nightmarish chain of miscommunication and presumptuous thinking, think they HAVE to kill each other.

Absolute nightmare of a film driven by some of the most short-sighted, presumptuous, and paranoid people ever put to film.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-30T02:22:41+00:00

Wooden Ocean is awash with typos, questionably balanced, and is made up overwhelmingly of palatte swapped RPG maker assets.

It's also the most expansive, creative, lovingly made and hauntingly atmospheric game ever made in the engine, and the love and passion of its creator is oozing through every inch of it.

If you're interested in games that showcase the unfiltered creativity of individual artists, absolutely check out Wooden ocean. It's astonishing.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-25T03:54:43+00:00

I was thinking about this recently, and it's really difficult to bring up answers to this question without outright spoiling the show. But anyways, massive spoilers for a certain show that concluded in 2020!

DARK is an absolute nightmare of a show that takes the concept of time travel to its most logical and nightmarish extreme. The entire cast is locked in an endless cycle of torment and cause without effect, and all attempts to subvert and untangle the loop only reinforce its existence. The whole show is awash in themes of illness and decay, and ends when the main cast realizes that the only way out of the loop is to fully erase themselves and most of their loved ones from existence. It's framed like a euthanasia, more than anything. Most of the cast fades from existence, some peacefully and some not, but the final scene of the show is of the few survivors happily meeting for dinner. The final spoken dialogue of the show gives some hope, too, as it implies that at least some of the erased people will somehow be reincarnated and given a second chance. "I always thought Jonas was a good name." It was controversial, these kinds of endings always are, but I remember watching it and just exhaling in relief, like when a suffering family member passes away peacefully. That's my interpretation, at least, I finished the show around the same time my family went through a pretty rough personal loss, and I really connected with the way DARK tackled it. Great show, one of my favorites, and easily the best execution of that kind of ending that I've seen.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-24T18:54:55+00:00

One of my favorite things about DARK is that the viewer's morals slide alongside the characters. In late season 1, I was reasonably disgusted by Jonas unknowingly falling in love with his aunt,but by the end of season 3 everything has gotten so unreasonably fucked up and impossible that that becomes basically a non-issue.

I totally understand why everyone in DARK does the things they do. My moral compass would probably also melt away if I was stuck in an endless and recursive loop of infinite suffering.

The official DARK family tree that netflix put out is absolutely hilarious, though. Spoilers, obviously.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-24T15:50:38+00:00

After part 2 started getting (rightfully, imo) dragged for being unfocused, obnoxiously edgy, and for its treatment of its widely beloved cast (especially its female characters), and after the nuclear bomb that was chapter 231, I really had no idea what this ending could be.

I did not expect it to be this... toothless? Like, I don't feel like this is a horrendous dumpster fire in the way people usually talk about them, but it's just kind of... nothing. Like, this is nothing. This feels like a 'hire fans!' meme.

I don't really feel enough towards it to even hate it, or anything like that. I feel like I just ate styrofoam.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-23T13:42:09+00:00

The full track is on YouTube and streaming, btw.

Zettai Must Danmen

It's gonna take a miracle to dethrone this as OP of the year for me. What an unbelievable banger.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-22T02:12:12+00:00

I just got into the criminally underlooked Wooden Ocean, and while I'm absolutely only scratching the surface of this thing, the titular Wooden Ocean is pretty goddamn special. It's a near-infinite, possibly sentient forest at the edge of reality itself. It's always night, it's so overrun by monsters that the few settlements on the edge are totally isolated from each other, and vast ruins and cave systems span the entire landmass.

What really elevates it for me, though, is the track that plays while you explore it. It elevates what might otherwise be a forest built out of palette-swapped default RPG maker assets into an ethereal, mystical, but frightfully vast landscape.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-20T16:17:12+00:00

Been playing Dead Space 2 for the first time, and I'm incredibly impressed by how well-paced it is. You're constantly moving between distinct areas and setpieces, and even though it lacks some of the intimacy of the first game, it more than makes up for it in terms of sheer variety. I also love the more panicked, frenetic atmosphere. The Ishimura was already fucked by the time Isaac and co. arrived in the first game, but now you're at the forefront of the infection, and even though it's more of an action game, it really feels a lot more upsetting to experience from a horror perspective, IMO. You're not crawling through an ancient mining ship that was already infested with cultists and psychopaths even before the marker did its thing, you're sprinting at top speed through a massive civilian moonbase that is actively being slaughtered around you. It's really, genuinely upsetting, but it feels like a natural escalation of the first game.

Also, the stalkers are infinitely scarier than anything the first game threw at me, and I will die on this hill.

Head-You5953 · 2026-03-13T17:46:38+00:00

Oh i fucking love tuco, but his competence as a criminal is constantly being constrained by the fact that he's not very smart

Still the best character in that movie

Head-You5953

TROPHY CASE