Fiction that has affected you

[Retsam19]

Oh, so many places I could go with this... so I'll diversify a little.

Books:
I love anything written by Brandon Sanderson, but especially Way of Kings, and in terms of emotional impact this one is way up there. The way that it tells the main characters struggles simultaneously with the equally tragic backstory leading up to it, but with a firmly satisfying emotional payoff at the end. (Several, actually) Not to mention a fascinating, intricate world and interesting politics and magic. If you enjoy Game of Thrones, give this book a chance.

Video games:
The game that's had the single greatest effect on my life easily has to be Pokemon. Not so much in terms of the plot or even the gameplay, but just the culture that built up around those games. In the first few years after the game's launch, Pokemon was like a universal language between kids, I'd meet random kids and could immediately bond over battling and trading Pokemon or the cards.

Anime:
Trigun. At first glace, a goofy show about a gunslinger protagonist, but has some of the best ethics that I've seen in fiction. (And, hey the humor and action isn't bad, either)

Movies:
I have to go with Star Wars. I never got as deeply into Star Wars as some have, I'm not the sort of person who would walk down the aisle to Imperial March or anything like that, but Star Wars was probably the first thing that really captured my interest in fantasy and storytelling.

 

[luckshotpro]

Games: Katawa Shoujo, Spec Ops: The Line, and Bioshock
Movies: American History X and Forrest Gump

 

[DementedSheep]

So since I?ve just read the last issue of Gillens run on Journey into Mystery (which is great and you should read it even if you don?t like superhero comics. Just so long as you don't mind tragedies because damn is it depressing underneath all the humour) and it?s the first work of fiction too actually really upset me to the point where I feel like crawling into a ball and crying in years I figured I ask the escapist...

What?s the last time a story has got you really emotionally invested or provoked a strong emotional response from you? Anything really, happy, sad, angry (although I would rather this did not turn into a ME3 hate thread).

Did the last issue come out today? I have been in love with it so far, but with how the 6-part arc ended I am preparing for the worst... I really don't want chaotic good Loki to go away

Yep, the last issue is out.
Read it and then you can join in with the rest of the JiM fandom crying in anguish and cursing Kieron Gillen name.

I had a feeling this would happen. The status quo is an evil mother fucker!

At least he's going to start writing Iron Man soon... not that I didn't mind Fraction's run at all. He better not end that depressingly too! >:O

Hopefully he got all his desire to toy with the readers and write depressing stores out in JiM. Wishfull thinking?

Captcha: Have Courage
I don't know that I can Captcha, not after this...but I shall try.

 

[Euryalus]

Bastion - The Zulf ending. If you played the game and didn't choose to take Zulf i want to hit you. It was the moment when I decided that game was nearly a masterpiece. Seriously I can not willingly choose to leave him.

That part was absolutely beautiful
I can't remember though, was he dead as you bring him back with you, or was he just dying?

I also really like the part at the end (if you choose the "start anew" option") where they fly off into the sunset. It should be cliched as all hell, but it was done so well. That game was a masterpiece... If I only enjoyed isometric combat :/

I still prefer Limbo though, as hard as it is for me to choose between them.

 

[peruvianskys]

Fiction, I'd have to say that Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner were both devastating to me.

 

[Boggelz]

Bastion - The Zulf ending. If you played the game and didn't choose to take Zulf i want to hit you. It was the moment when I decided that game was nearly a masterpiece. Seriously I can not willingly choose to leave him.

That part was absolutely beautiful
I can't remember though, was he dead as you bring him back with you, or was he just dying?

I also really like the part at the end (if choose the "start anew" option") where they fly off into the sunset. It should be cliched as all hell, but it was done so well. That game was a masterpiece... If I only enjoyed isometric combat :/

I still prefer Limbo though, as hard as it is for me to choose between them.

I'm fairly sure that he was merely dying, so to leave him you let him suffer for the actions he took, while if you take him you act as forgiving him and give him a second chance. I believe he's with you at the end if you save him. And that ending seriously made me feel great, awesome closure.

And Limbo... ehh it was creepy but not that emotionally investing. The spider left poop in my pants though.

 

[DementedSheep]

Oh, so many places I could go with this... so I'll diversify a little.

Books:
I love anything written by Brandon Sanderson, but especially Way of Kings, and in terms of emotional impact this one is way up there. The way that it tells the main characters struggles simultaneously with the equally tragic backstory leading up to it, but with a firmly satisfying emotional payoff at the end. (Several, actually) Not to mention a fascinating, intricate world and interesting politics and magic. If you enjoy Game of Thrones, give this book a chance.

Brandon Sanderson is my favourite author currently. Way of kings was excellent and I love Kaladin and Dalinar although I still love the mistborn trilogy more.

 

[Euryalus]

And Limbo... ehh it was creepy but not that emotionally investing. The spider left poop in my pants though.

Fear is an emotion

I just wish Limbo had stayed like it was in the beginning. Atmospheric story with puzzles. After a while it devolved into atmospheric puzzles.

Also when the boy breaks through the glass at the end and lands in the forest like he does I thought the game was going to end exactly where it started with him in... wait for it... LIMBO!
I was pissed when they didn't do that, and he actually did find his sister? (Is that who the girl was?)

 

[Retsam19]

Oh, so many places I could go with this... so I'll diversify a little.

Books:
I love anything written by Brandon Sanderson, but especially Way of Kings, and in terms of emotional impact this one is way up there. The way that it tells the main characters struggles simultaneously with the equally tragic backstory leading up to it, but with a firmly satisfying emotional payoff at the end. (Several, actually) Not to mention a fascinating, intricate world and interesting politics and magic. If you enjoy Game of Thrones, give this book a chance.

Brandon Sanderson is my favourite author currently. Way of kings was excellent and I love Kaladin and Dalinar although I still love the mistborn trilogy more.

Mistborn is certainly a more complete work, and the general consensus seems to be that Allomancy/Feruchemy is the best magic system. (Ever. Legitimately, type "Best Magic System" into Google and try to find an article that doesn't mention it)
But as far as single books go, I think Way of Kings wins handily against any of the Mistborn books.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Fable: The Lost Chapters grew me up. It made me a man.

Alright, sad personal story coming up: I recieved Fable: TLC on my fifteenth birthday, a week after my mom died. Obivously, it was a horrible time for me. She had been the only person raising me my entire life, and I was so broken after that. You can imagine that it wasn't a fun birthday. Now, for all that she was an amazing person, my mother had, in all honesty, kind of coddled me all my life. I had never really known much responsability, and I had never needed to be mature or self-capable. After she passed, even with my large-ish family, I felt very alone.

Trying to take my mind off things as best I could, I started playing the only video game I had recieved on my birthday: Fable: The Lost Chapters, from my older brother. I guess it was just the escape I was looking for, because instantly, I was more immersed in a single game than I ever had been or have been since. The Fable Boy and I became One and the Same, and I enveloped myself entirely in Albion. And here came a story of a lost, coddled little boy losing everything: his home, and family, all in one horrible event. It's no wonder I identified with the child.

What came next was an engrossing, multi-year epic of a story (Which I completed, locked in my room playing for hours a day, in just under a month) about a child losing his family, and growing up in new family to become a man, going off on his own to adventure and learn about the world. It could not have been better timed.

When I emerged from my room a month later, the end credits rolling across the TV screen behind me, I felt like a completely new person. A grown adult, ready to take on the world. Fable had done more then help me cope; it had helped me grow up.

That's also the same time I started calling myself "Jack" instead of "Ryan." I WONDER IF THERE'S A CONNECTION THERE.

So... yeah. Sorry to gush, I guess I just had to get that off my chest.

 

[McMullen]

Myst and Riven, and a making-of book about them, got me into a hobby that turned into a career that's now turning into a graduate thesis. Most profoundly impactful media in my life.

Which makes it seem strange that I no longer possess a copy of either of them, although I still have that book.

 

[tseroff]

Les Miserables completely changed my life. The story, philosophy, and writing style inspires me so much. I can't really explain it, but it really got down into me.

Edit: My captcha told me to type any words. Lazy captcha.

 

[darkcalling]

Games: Mass Effect - the whole series was such a roller Coaster ride and felt like such a real place that you really felt the sadness in the third one. Of course unlike many I actually loved the ending and would have felt a bit betrayed if I'd gotten a big Hollywood happy ending.

Lost Odyssey - I honestly don't know how much it really affected me but this has GOT to be the saddest game I've ever played. Great game though

Movies: Transformers - I STILL cry whenever I watch the original Transformers movie. Optimus Prime Dying was probably the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

Books: Dragons of Spring Dawning - This was actually the first book I ever read where the setting was a real place. The whole trilogy really but there was one scene where Tasslehoff and Flint were going into battle on dragonback that was just...omg.

Other: Red vs Blue - It may be just a goofy comedy series but it has some real drama and touching moments. The end of season 8 in particular with Church following Tex into the memory unit. That felt so sad yet hopeful that I couldn't help but tear up a little.

 

[Bernzz]

That one part in Gears 3. You know what I'm talking about.

I had it spoiled for me before I got the game, and it was still powerful.

Gonna be the one to throw Of Mice and Men in here. My god did that book get me right in the feels

The feels.

I even read it in English class, and even that and all the analysing didn't ruin it for me.

Spec Ops: The Line.
If you play through that and it doesn't effect you... I don't know. It even got to Yahtzee.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6021-Spec-Ops-The-Line

Reminds me, I gotta finish that. Apparently I'm close to the end.

Lord of the Rings (all).

"My friends, you bow to no one."

OR

"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil."

All the tears!

 

[StormShaun]

I'll put them into groups.

Games: Red Dead Redem, Infamous 2, Mass Effet 2/3 and Jak and Daxter.
Anime: Clannad...yep.
Visual Novels: Most of them, especailly Little Busters and a few others.
Movies: Lord of the Rings.

THat's all I can think of on the spot.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Oh good grief this is a long list. The Journey of Ibn Fattouma comes first to mind in books. Journey comes to mind in gaming, slightly ahead of Mother 3, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Twilight Princess. Oh gods, and Portal 2.

Movies, we have Toy Story 2 and 3, Up (oh gods the tears!), The Fall, and I can't finish this list because I need to go do something that doesn't make me cry happy tears all over the place.

 

[ultrachicken]

A lot of emotional films and games and books have affected me. I'm pretty easy, that way.

Off the top of my head, A Fine Balance made me want to kill myself...

A Fine Balance, to me, started off depressing and then got so over the top ridiculous in how things went wrong for the characters that I just couldn't take it seriously. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DarknessInducedAudienceApathy]

Deus Ex started a mental journey in me that concluded in becoming a pacifist.

 

[Flamezdudes]

Oh jeez where do I begin.

Well, i'm playing loads of Final Fantasy games at the moment and every one is just a brilliant emotional rollercoaster. And such good fun!

Two of my favourite things ever are the film and book Let The Right One In which has had me obsessed with it for over two years now. Every time I watch the film I tear up and get emotional because I can relate with the film so much and well... it's just such an amazing movie. The second favourite is the entire series of Evangelion which has helped given me insight into personal beliefs and psychology, it's also a major mindfuck and takes a lot of work to understand which in itself is a hell of a ride. It was incredibly emotional too, especially Episode 22 which is my favourite episode.

There is too much to list!

Oh and Clannad made me bawl my eyes out and Requiem For.A Dream was a massively depressing film.

 

[chadachada123]

Katawa Shoujo truly affected me emotionally, and made me re-evaluate myself as a person in respect with relationships.

It's one of the few pieces of media that made me truly care for the characters and not cry from the situation only. I seriously felt like I was falling in love with the various girls from the various routes, to the point of feeling guilty when starting a new route.

It may sound like I'm acting odd or that I must be exaggerating, but I'm entirely sincere. It is by far the most emotionally-engaging piece of media that I've experienced.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I tend to get really emotionally invested in most of the fiction I partake in, unless it's really poorly done. I suppose I should give a few specific examples, let's see... Eight Below, Dragonheart, The NeverEnding Story, AI: Artificial Intelligence, To Kill a Mockingbird, Green Mile... to name a few.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot Gunslinger Girl/II. That anime yanked hard on my heartstrings with every episode.