I Totally Love It. I Do Not Recommend It

Pop Culture & Media
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I’ve never finished House of Leaves, but I’ve gotten 3/4 of the way through twice. Weirdly enough, I kind of love it anyways!

I love the game Steep, but I could never recommend it to anyone! It’s a bad game! The progression is weird and arbitrary! There’s both way too much and not enough to do! But I played it just after the 2016 election. It was somewhere I could go and just not think about anything for a few hours. I’ve tried going back since, but I’m in a completely different headspace now, so it’s not the same!

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Same for me. The anime and light novels are one of my favorite works period, but then as soon as I try to discuss it with people I have to throw up a wall of qualifiers and warnings. I had to stop watching Kizu myself once it got to the first shot of Kiss-shot.

Edit: Homestuck is another good example of this. I found out last night that it updated again, and hearing that caused a fight or flight reaction in me lol. (Still haven’t read that update yet…)

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let me tell you about Homestuck.

along with the usual reasons i’d avoid recommending stuff to others, there’s also the issue that i read a lot of it as it updated. to me, my experience of reading Homestuck is inseparable from the fan culture that surrounded it at its peak; to the point that i have no idea what reading it would be like without the fanart, speculation, rapid cosplaying and accidental DDOS’ing of Newgrounds that immediately followed.

it’s also like three thousand pages long and eff that noise

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I came here to mention Seveneves and Neil Stephenson in general and burst out laughing in my workplace to see him and his work mentioned multiple times in this thread.

Barring Mr. Stephenson I’d say Kerbal Space Program and High Frontier. They’re both simulationist approximations of real-world spaceflight in video and board game form. I think they’re both brilliant and I wish more people would play them but at the end of the day they are sims first and games second and that’s just gonna chafe on a lot of people.

I once had a friend give me their personal list of changes they would make to one of these games to make it more fun and approachable and all I could tell them is that they fundementally didn’t understand what these games we’re trying to be or to accomplish.

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So I take it this is a good thread to reiterate that I hated Snow Crash, loved Cryptonomicon precisely because of how full of itself it is, and never even read the third act of SevenEves because I felt the spot part two ended in was a good ending lol?

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Something I see levelled at his work a lot is that it needs to be more heavily edited. I’m not saying they’re wrong but I kinda go to his books for when he is extremely on his bullshit taking long self indulgent asides to explain some sort of underlying technology or whatnot that will be relevant later in the book.

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God what a fascinating article and associated ramble. I’m intensely curious about how things have turned out for this person since it’s been like 4-5 years since this has all went down seemingly.

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I just realized that this is my exact relationship with Cloud Atlas the movie directed by the Wachowski’s, but it’s so late here and I can’t stay up to go into this, but also I don’t want to forget about this topic and end up not doing it so consider this a teaser/warning for me trying to figure out my feelings about the beautiful mess that movie is, why it made my cry like a baby and why in hindsight it’s, uhh… Not, like, totally flawless.

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Probably Umeneko a goddamn 60+ hour visual novel that’s incredibly over indulgent, incredibly full of itself, it has a dumb insulting ending. But I kinda love it a lot, mostly just in awe that something like it got made at all, I’m especially impressed that they had the gall to end the game the way it does, and even though it’s dumb and insulting, am kinda impressed in that “well you did it” sort of way. Don’t play it

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I completely disagree with everything you said except for length.

Everyone should play Umineko. The reason why I don’t recommend it is just because I know no one will.

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I mean I suppose I will say I wasn’t very clear, I do actually like the indulgence and how full of itself it is for the most part. I still feel the ending is dumb, though I guess I will say I appreciate it in a way

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Oh shit, I don’t have time to get into this at all (and I don’t even particularly like visual novels) but I’m so intrigued. I should probably stop reading this thread :laughing:

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All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace sort of inverts this for me. It’s a brilliant, fascinating, dark series of documentaries about how people through the 60s-90s attempted to use computers and computational concepts to build utopias. It’s gorgeous and stylish, using disjointed B-Roll to an indie soundtrack to deliver its narrative.
However on a recent rewatch I’ve realised I completely disagree with its core concept, that computers cannot save us. I believe they could, if in the hands of the right people. Its political viewpoint is very centrist, painting hypercapitalists and anarchists with the same brush of “deluded outliers” for opposing (capital S) Society without consideration for the difference in morals therein.

I’d highly recommend watching it but I disagree with its conclusions

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Alright, so, Cloud Atlas:

Cloud Atlas is a movie that for all intents and purposes should never have been made. at damn near 3 hours, containing 5 different stories in wildly different genres, spanning several thousands of years, featuring largely the same cast of actors playing different roles, genders, races, it is just such a fucking trainwreck on paper. Yet going into watch it, by mistake (because I didn’t actually book seats for the movie me and my friend were supposed to go see), with no preconceived notions what so ever, it absolutely knocked me back on my coal mining ass. It was one of those rare moments where you just experience a complete and utter suspension of disbelief and it had me from bell to bell.

It is, however, also almost 3 hours long. and it features white people playing Asian people, Asian people playing white people, black people playing white people, black people playing black people, white people playing white people, men playing women, women playing men and oh my god it’s so fucking messy. the tonal shifts between the 5 different stories are unbelievable, ranging from historical drama to sci-fi action, to post apocalyptical adventure to 70’s spy thriller to farcical comedy and it opens itself up to so many pitfalls and at any moment any potential member is absolutely at risk of simply going “alright, fuck this, I’m out”.

But for some weird reason I just can’t stop loving it, despite the messiness. It is a movie that so obviously means well and the ethos behind it is something I think is commendable, even if I don’t think we’re anywhere close to living in a society where the context of what they’re doing in terms of casting and representation doesn’t feel pretty off the mark. I audibly gasped at the “What is the ocean but a multitude of drops” line, even though I know it’s kinda hokey but it still just hit me so hard, and it still hits me to this day.

In summation, Cloud Atlas is a glorious, overly ambitious, complicated and, when it all comes down to it, problematic mess of a movie that I just can’t help but love. It is still one of my favourite movie going experiences and while I can never fault anyone for not wanting to engage with it on any level what so ever I… I just can’t let it down. Even all these years later, with a much more developed critical tool box it’s a movie that just completely confounds me.

I truly love it, and I cannot in good conscience recommend it.

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PFSC is a good shout. It’s hard to recommend because it doesn’t exist, the humour was weird and it was also pretty hit and miss in its latter life.

This continues to be one of my favourite comics of all time however.
image
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Wheel of Time. Somewhat messy thoughts incoming…

I care about all of the main characters. Several aren’t actually all that likeable but I never got the feeling that the book wanted me to like them. The ever-objectifying Mat is just one example. Book 14 spoiler: That people often just see him as this leering troublemaker almost causes an entire army to be destroyed by the enemy, which would likely result in losing the greater war for existence itself, because they were reluctant to give him control over the entire battlefield.
While the story revolves most strongly around three men there are plenty of very strong female characters with agency and motivations that have nothing to do with a man.
The world and its mythology are interesting. Though I might just be a sucker for magic that feels like it consistently follows a set of rules…
The action ranges from desperate one-on-one fights to absolutely massive battles, as well as political struggles on almost every possible scale.
I’m currently halfway through the final book and feel a little sad that it’s coming to an end.

It’s also massive, with 14 books in the main series (15 if you include the prequel), amounting to over 4 million words in total or just under 20 days if you’re listening to the audio version.
Over time the amount of viewpoint characters that are in totally different locations has grown a lot. This often makes the overarching plot feel agonizingly slow.
And it’s really particular about gender. Men and women have their own versions of magic, similar to some extent but certainly separate. The male part has also been “tainted” by the Dark One, the Big Bad of the series, and male Channelers invariably go mad if they keep using it. And, questionably, if a male Channeler links with a female one the former always gets total and utter control over using the power, including when the link is severed. The book describes the experience as pretty traumatic to the woman.
Characters of both genders also constantly remark upon not being able to understand ““the other””, calling them “incomprehensible” and “fools” and that this barrier is just the way it is. It literally requires magical bonds that allow you to know what the other one is feeling to make some people understand that they’re actually pretty much the same?
Finally, something slightly petty: the names. My goodness, the NAMES! There are just so many fancy made-up words with liberal application of apostrophes. Ta’veren. Aes Sedai. Asha’man. Angreal, Ter’angreal, Sa’angreal. Tel’aran’rhiod. Every time I read one of these books after a pause I’m slightly confused for like 50 pages.
I’m currently halfway through the final book and feel a little relieved that it’s coming to an end.

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I honestly wonder about the series of decisions that led from reading that book to deciding it could be reasonably cohered into a movie.
(I REALLY like the book, I thought the movie was a terrible mess (sorry))

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No need to apologize! It is inarguably extremely messy.

The Blank Check podcast went into the making of the movie back when they covered it, and it was a pretty interesting story. Basically their elevator pitch was “Tom Hanks starts out as a bad person and 5000 years later he becomes a good person”.

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Did it really have the shrink wrapped wasp inside? I’ve honestly never seen one of the books unfortunately, but it is an interesting hallmark in lost media.

Ultimately we may never know as hopefully Campbell’s wishes are respected and she’s left in peace. Based on what happened I imagine it’s nothing exciting.

Very true I feel it was maybe getting a bit long in the tooth by then? Though I can remember a fair bit of it but my favourite was about the technological progress(?). It has been 5 years so I don’t actually remember much of of the later life of the comic.

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Starting this thread I knew someone was going to bring up Homestuck and this really hit the nail on the head. It started in 2009 and I’m sure there’s stuff that makes it hard to go back to, and it’s massive and sprawling and confusing and I eventually lost interest and never finished it, but none of those are really why I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s because now that it’s finished it’s impossible to actually have “The Experience” of reading Homestuck. The pervasiveness of online discussion and fandom is kind of the main thing that got me started and kept me interested in Homestuck.