one spesfic episdoe of the orginal digimon anime. i watched it when i was pretty young; and the episode that skullgreymon comes out for the first time was the frirst time i ever saw a protagonist fail; and espically failing as a friend. it really stuck with me
The anime Oshi-No-Ko is a story about the Japanese stars known as Idols, it tackles all the deep dark issues with the entertainment industry like cancel culture, stalkers, and higher ups making poor decisions. After the first episode alone my mindset towards celebrities had completely changed, and when the main character is trying to stop his sister from achieving her Idol dreams, I actually was rooting for him. Which I wouldn’t have before seeing the first episode because it led to their mother’s death. Even though I knew what he was doing was wrong.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” The same way we never read a story twice as even if the text is the same, we are never the same reader. A story always with me is Princess Mononoke as i always keep the in mind the idea to see with eyes unclouded by hate.
Outer Wilds is that game for me. The curiosity, the loss, the thrill of putting things together - and how most of the logs you find are just as curious as you are, and how the story rewards you for that interest... wow, man, just wow
Came here for the outer wilds comment!! This game gave me a reason to keep going after I escaped the lds church. I was told my entire life what would happen after death, and that every waking moment should be spent towards preparing for that death. And then I got Outer Wilds. It spun tales of characters that I fell in love with again and again, it told stories of compassion and tragedy, it finally made me realize that the universe isn't controlled by anything, it simply _is_ and that no one is judging me for living the way I want to. (It also reminded me that life can be unfair, and that it's always been that way. But that's not a reason to give up, if anything, it's a reason to keep going. There's always little moments of happiness to be found, sparks of connection with people who you may never see again, and isn't that so incredibly special?) And in the end, it told me that all will be forgotten. But instead of being put off by that fact, it gave me reason to find solace. You may fade from the record, but you are also _alive_ . You make your mark on the world before you dissolve into obscurity by the way you help people, the ways you try to make them smile, the ways they pay that back. And, aren't you glad you stopped to smell the pine trees? So uh yeah, Outer Wilds is probably the most life-changing piece of media that I've ever stumbled across, and I'm so glad I did
I knew this would be down here, and I am so glad it's as high up in the comments as it is. It was the first thing to come to mind when I read the video title.
Delicious in Dungeon. The amazing switch up from comedy to existential horror and impeccable character drama while keeping the story as fun as it ever was and even funnier, because Ryoko Kui is just the goat of writing intertwined comedy that feeds drama that feeds comedy which all is built upon incredible characters and Tolkien level worldbuilding. For it all to begin with food and base desires of human condition.
Amazing video! I love that you are so vulnerable with these discussions; I've sometimes felt ashamed or guilty at feeling such strong feelings from a story, especially when others I know haven't. It's very gratifying to hear that I am not weird 😅.
Stories are stories and stories are meant to make you feel something. If you feel strongly about a story, you're not the weird one, you are enjoying the story as it was meant to be enjoyed.
9:36 This hurts. I'm sitting here trying, raking my brain, TRYING to remember a story that changed me and I can't remember any. I've read most of the ones you mentioned and I was like 'oh, yeah, right, I read that once...I don't remember if it changed me". I have a very bad memory especially of my childhood. I KNOW that there has been stories that changed me, that made me cry, made me question life and my place in it but I just can't remember them. I can usually ignore my memory problems. The great thing about forgetting things is you usually don't miss them...until someone reminds you...and suddenly you're crying, mourning something you don't remember losing.
I can relate regarding not being able to remember a story that's changed me. He's a passionate guy, which is great to see, but I'm not a passionate person. I've read stories that have blown me away (figuratively), but I cannot remember any that I would say changed me. I'm still basically the same steadfast person now that I was at 2 or 3 years old, back to my earliest memories. I feel the same, just more knowledgeable. When I read stories, great or small, I always have a feeling like I'm remembering something I knew but forgot. They're simply reminding me of what I already know, in a way. Stories always feel familiar to me, as if they've always been a part of me. I also have a bad memory. I've loved a lot of stories, but I don't feel changed by any of them. You're not alone in this.
There's so many books I read as a kid/teen that I can only kind of vaguely remember but that I remember being strongly affected by. I'd say though that every story we encounter changes us a bit. It may not be dramatic or fully conscious, but even books, movies, or games that aren't very good overall can offer little ideas, insights, or inspiration that can change how you think about things.
Signalis is one that changed me, I can't even describe how, but after playing it two years ago, it has left me with this inescapable longing, a dread in my heart that has never faded. 10/10, would play it again, and ugly cry into my desk.
i loved signalis, except for the part where if you play it using resources sparingly and not killing monsters (typical behavior for the genre it is emulating), you get a bad ending. was very frustrating when the whole game is so long. like, not replayable for me levels of long.
signalis is the most recent example i have of a story that changed me, like, jesus christ....... replaying the game for 100% achievements was daunting not because of the gameplay challenges, but because i knew i'd have to face this story again that makes me cry every time without fail. and it DID - HARD!!!!
One of the most profound experiences I had was in "Umineko: When They Cry" that develops from a deconstruction of the murder mystery genre to the exploration of humanity's relation to fiction and shows how stories are alive as long as we carry them (one of the messages getting out of it). And after getting to what it really is about, there was almost nothing that could come close. "Without love, it cannot be seen"
AHHHHHHH. I was just about to write about my own experience with Umineko!!! It literally reconfigured my brain (and made me go "oh, this makes sense, it's like Umineko" when all of my classmates got super confused about post structuralism xD). But yes, it's such an unforgettable experience. Definitely recommend everyone who hasn't yet you check it out!
For me, what nier changed was that I started to internalise that no matter how dark it gets, you can find a light. It might be in an exceptionally weird place, you might even have to become the light yourself... but it's there. Somewhere.
The only video game thats done this for me was Life is Strange. I honestly don't know how to explain the feelings it gave me, but after i finished it for the first time, i literally sat on my couch in silence for at least an hour. I didnt touch a video game for weeks and i retreated to my comfort show (ATLA), binged it, then followed it up with Korra. Finally after all that i settled back into a somewhat normal routine. That was 2 years ago. Even now i will think back and sit in silence for a bit. Violet Evergarden did something similar as well.
One Piece. I took the plunge and got into it last year. I know the sheer length of the series turns a lot of people away, but man I'd give anything to watch it again for the first time. Oda has had his series planned out from the beginning and his writing reflects it beautifully. Heart wrenching moments, heavy topics, social commentary and found family all lie beneath the goofy Shonen wrapping. I think you'd really enjoy it, Tim!
The end of LOTR made me feel a strange kind of sorrow which has stuck with me. Having read the Hobbit, I expected a similar conclusion. But when Frodo and Gandalf and the others left for Valinor, and with the coming of the age of men, it felt like the magic was seeping out of the world just as the story was slipping away from me.
when I heard you discuss the funeralists, I assumed this was some classic story by a highly acclaimed author, so I was impressed to discover you wrote it
Automata really did spend 4 playthroughs telling you everything you're doing is pointless, believing in things is dumb, and there's gonna be tragedy no matter how hard you try, but if you don't do something and don't believe in something then there's no point in existing. It's got such an existentially bleak outlook, and yet somehow, it's still the most cathartic and life-affirming piece of art I've ever encountered.
I was in third grade and my friend and I were looking at books in our classroom when I picked up Harry Potter. I was going to read it but she wanted to as well, and since she was a faster reader than I was she read it while I picked up Dear America, My Heart is on the Ground. That book changed my life as a 9 year old by showing me how harsh it was to be a little native girl being sent to a missionary and being forced to give up her culture and watch her friend be buried alive. It was written in a diary format from the girls pov and it hit so hard. It changed me and the kind of books I was drawn to forever after that. I didn’t end up reading Harry Potter until I was 18 because of that fateful day 😅
When i was in early middle school my mom decided i was old enough to see a production of Les Miserables. That story has shaped my morality for the rest of my life, and i haven't shut up about it since. One of my most happy moments was receiving a text from a friend saying they'd just watched it, and they got it now.
I think a part of my childhood died when I read Flowers For Algenon in school. I saw people take turns reading parts of this piece out loud, each voice changing from bored to excited to scared to me. On my turn I was quiet. I had a paragraph, there were words on a page of a man yelling in a diner at the injustice he has just seen. But yet I couldn't say it, I went to the bathroom and cried. I will always love this story and I read the rest on my own.
Dishonored. You’re the Empress’s personal guard and you fail to stop her assassination and the kidnapping of her daughter. The game reacts to your choices, specifically how violently you play the game. Obviously I’m pissed and I slay all the henchmen I come across until the game finally lets you rescue the daughter. In a quiet moment at the home base of the game you walk by the princess drawing to pass the time and process the trauma she just went through. She tells you she’s drawing you rescuing her, and she drew me as a terrifying smoke monster because of how violently I rescued her. That hit me hard. From that point until the end of the game I tried to play as pacifist as I could.
“The Inner Light” from StarTrek TNG is a master piece in this topic. The Enterprise encounters an ancient probe and it zaps Picard, usual stuff, but it isn’t nefarious, it has Picard live the life of one man living on a dying world. In the end, it was a desperate plea cast into space on the glimmer of hope that someone would find it and witness there in. The episode ends with Picard making the sort of flute they had and playing a song he learned; the last notes of a civilization millions of years dead.
not gonna lie... i love TNG and seen all the episodes like 100+ times and that one is among my least favorites lol. Its funny how each media hits us all differently.
Hey, just wanted to hop in to tell you that most of your videos/stories feel like that for me! You somehow manage to pull on my heartstrings every single time and I always feel changed in a small way after watching your videos. So thank you for doing what you do, because it's really special ❤
Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It was the first video game I played on my own without my husband. It showed me that video games (something I didn’t grow up with and knew nothing about) could be these beautiful pieces of storytelling art. There was a place for me here, I could enjoy and even get good at video games and my world got so much bigger. I’m now 600+ hours into Baldur’s Gate 3, with three journals full of terrible fanfiction and I’ve never been happier 😄
The very first of these for me was The Phantom Tollbooth. That book basically turned me from a kid who could read, but was mostly read to, into somebody who started reading basically everything I could get my hands on. It quite literally changed the entire trajectory of my life, set me on a track that would guide me for decades to come, just by being /exactly/ the right book for the person I was at the time.
Great choice! I remember having a similar experience with Phantom Tollbooth. I was forced to read it in elementary school and I remember it vividly as one of the times I went from being forced to read something to devouring it quicker than my teachers ever expected.
_The Beginner's Guide_ has fundamentally shifted my perception of video games, interpersonal relationships, storytelling, and just generally how humans communicate and understand each other. Other things that have completely redefined how video games and storytelling work: - The Stanley Parable (same dev as The Beginners Guide), especially the broom closet ending - Spec Ops: The Line, iykyk - most of the Supergiant Games catalogue, but especially Pyre - a rare game that turns all "fail states" into meaningful and interesting stories, to a degree that you might intentionally choose to lose the main gameplay loop to make the story go the way you want it - Stray Gods, which somehow pulls off a real-time choose-your-own-adventure musical while also being a classical Greek myth about prophecy - Journey (same composer as Stray Gods), which manages to have an emotionally impactful story with an unnamed mute protagonist and the occasional other player
The brightest example I've got of a story that's changed my life has to be Cowboy Bebop. Since I've always been a really sentimental and nostalgic person, its themes about being stuck in the past and living in your own shadow deeply resonated with me at the time I watched it. The characters, the music, and the aesthetic as a whole contribute to what is in my mind a truly special piece of fiction. And my favorite. I don't think a single day has gone by since I first watched it almost 4 years ago in which I haven't thought about it.
I have two: Rain World fundamentally altered my brain chemistry, probably some of the best ludonarritive around. It also taught me that i'm not the protagonist, or even a side character, I'm part of a dense ecosystem of others, and that doesn't make life any less meaningful. I Saw the TV Glow woke me up to the fact that I'm probably trans, and it feels like a lot of the scenes are laser-targeted to emotionallly annihilate you if you are closeted.
Great video! Sorry if this doesn't count, as it is nonfiction. David Attenborough's "Life on Earth" brought it home to me, at about 13, how old the world is and how important our brief time alive here is.
Nonfiction stories are still stories. They're told from a particular POV, and can change drastically if that POV is changed, so however "real" it is, it's still a story. Attenborough counts. :)
Thank you for this video. I was born a storyteller and still am one. I've written 3 unpublished books, and love stories with all of my heart. A while ago I was at an exploitative company and I used writing as my last hope to escape that. Creativity and writing is something to be enjoyed, putting that pressure and expectation on myself made everything I did not enough. Fast forward to quitting my job and working on my mental health, the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert has helped me change my perspective. I think that stories are beautiful, and all of them should be celebrated, including the broken ones told by 5 year olds. Thank you for speaking of the majesty of stories. Please continue creating(: And my fellow storytellers, don't be so hard on yourselves. 'done is better than perfect' and 'You are not required to save the world with your creativity; your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words, it also doesn't have to be important' Your art is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.
I always have to pause whenever you upload a new video. Because chances are I get so inspired that i have to drop every personal project im curently busy with and start writing again.
The first one I can remember really changing me is Good Omens. It was the first Terry Pratchett book I ever read (my dad lent me his copy in about 2011) and it really hit me with its humour, its themes of fate vs free will, determinism, and what the nature of Good or Evil are
Sounds weird but Fight Club (the movie). Seeing the way that the story satirizes everything, including itself, was such a mind blowing experience. I still watch it every year and I still find new things to fall in love with
The World Ends With You. It was the right story at the right time for me. I was roughly the age of the characters and deeply related to the main character especially who is not a good person at the beginning of the story. It made me realize that I also was a terrible person at the time and his journey helped my own. I can't say that it was the deeply profound feeling you described in the video because I don't engage with stories that way, but I internalized the message of that story and strife to emulate it in my own life.
Bastion. I will never forget how I felt playing the end of bastion. the entire game is structured around a premise and it twists at the end and I sat there for 15 minutes, paralyzed by the intensity of that twist. truly one of the best games I have ever played.
Mob psycho 100 is probably the first story i cam across where i saw myself represented. I'd always been reading with a vague desire to see myself in the characters, i always related and empathized before this point, but mob psycho was the first to make me go oh thats me. Up until this point i hadnt realized how emotional repressed i was. I recognized the potential for violence in me and i had always valued kindness but mob psycho was the first story to give me a character who did the same thing and had the same values and needed to grow beyond it. There's this arch in mob psycho where he trapped in a dream world, basically alone, being bullied and emotionally tortured by the other people in the world. Hes trying so hard to maintain hope in the face of cruelty and isolation. He almost loses himelf to anger when a friend breaks through the dream and remimds him the dream isn't real. It reminds him how lucky he is in real life to have hi friends and family. It reminds that he can be courageous because there are people he loves waiting for him. Mob is so kind and do... at times innocent. But its not coming from a place of ignorance. Its coming from an internal conflict between the violence of his emotions, the violence that the outside world demands from him, and the gentle heart at his core. Mob psycho likes to present 3rd options. Its okay to run away. Its okay to turn to the adults in your life or fall back on friends. Sometimes true heroics is talking things out. Reaching an understanding. And sometimes people are too immature or cruel for talking to work and its a struggle to break through to them without violence, without getting hurt yourself. Mob is a gentle character, his core philosophy is kindness, he tries to nurture those around him and even himself. And it hard. This story acknowledges that maintaining a calm gentle nature is often costly. That it gets you tken advantage of, that often times your own limit and own potential to be cruel and violent get thrown back in your face over and over again. But it never treats kindness as a weakness. Its the power hungry and arragont who are shown to be weak and immature. There philosophies and identities are far more fragile than mobs, because theyre usually built on a lie. Might makes right. Im the best because im the most powerful. I need this to be a whole person. The only way to make it in this dog eat dog world is to have the sharpest teeth Mob psycho strips the characters of their lies and shows the people they are with out power. Desperate, lonely, angry, stupid, shallow. And over and over we see the kindness reach people past the violence and anger. We see people grow and blossom with mobs gentle nurturing. Characters often have to be humbled first but it takes a lot of strength to reach out to people who hurt you. It takes a lot of vulnerability and sense of self. And it can still backfire, it can still get you hurt. I guess the thing thats most striking about mob psycho for me is how earnest it is. Its conflict is something I identify with. It emotionally repressed but highly empathetic main character is something i personally relate to. And its earnest desire for kindness, nurturing, redemption, and self improvement are things that motivate me. Mob psycho is special to me because for the first time i felt seen and it took the journey further. It gave me options and criticisms and ways for me to grow
For me, it’s the story that is the Mass Effect video game trilogy. Although I’m an avid reader too, the sometimes hundreds of hours you immerse yourself into a video game story should not be underestimated in the impact it can have on you.
The first story that truly changed me was "The Giving Tree". I was really young at the time, but I remember feeling so sad for both the tree and the boy. It genuinely changed how I thought about generosity and asking for help in a way I can't even put into words. Suddenly I was very aware of the things I was willing to give and what I was willing to ask for.
I am sitting on my couch on a cold and grey sunday morning with tears streaming down my face. I can mot remember a single instance of being fundamentally changed by a story despite consuming them for all of my thirty-six years of life. I feel like I have missed out on or failed some aspect of my humanity and my soul is as grey and barren as the sky outside. Thank you for making me feel something, even if it ended up being more akin to Void than Joy. It was something i needed to realize.
hi I feel about the same here. i had to really think about it to even remember one. perhaps you just don't remember, but regardless, at least after this maybe we would pay more attention when a story does change our life again :')
The way you talk about stories makes me feel seen and like there are other people like me out there after all, even if I didn't grow up around them or have them around me now.
Black Sails - my life literally has never been the same after I got to the scene where the queer protagonists says 'not only am I not going to ask society for forgiveness after they ruined my life and called me loathsome and a monster, it's actually me who will decide whether to forgive them'.
James Flint is honestly one of the most inspiring characters I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Black Sails also changed my life. Edit: I also don't want to forget Miranda. The scene where she stands up for Flint...
The sandman, i love how stories are portrayed in it. Its so beautiful because stories are the most powerful things ever. I love death too, the scene of a man looking up at her at the end of worlds end and describing how he will love her all his life, like his oldest deepest friend Edit: i bought the book
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander - as a 10 year old who didn’t know who I was, but wanting to accomplish something important, journeying with him as he became a man changed me. I have returned to this over and over again. The original Homeworld. When you jump back to the Earth and the debris of the last space station greets you while Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings calls all the longings of lost hope… The anguish of that moment is something I’ve never experienced in a video game before or since. “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Tolstoy - two years after being diagnosed with brain cancer, laying in bed, reading about Ivan’s loneliness and the humiliation of dying, it was so sad and distressing I couldn’t do anything but lay there and weep for hours. I couldn’t explain it to my family, especially because they have been there with me throughout the hospital, the surgery, the chemo, all of it.
Percy jackson, first book I read. It both changed my life and taught me the value of a simple unheroic life. Worm, its hard to describe how many ways Worm changed me
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin had me thinking about how there's no such thing as an objective ideal. One person's Paradise could be another person's Hell, and much harm is done by people who think they have all the answers and try to force others to conform to their idea of perfection.
Bridge to Terabithia was one of my favorite movies as a kid because I could relate to every single character. My mom took me to the theater to see it one Saturday randomly- she never did that. Now, after my mom has passed, that movie always reminds me of her. I don’t know why she decided to take me- I hadn’t even heard of the movie before- but I’m so glad that I have that memory now. It has made the bittersweet feeling even stronger and I love how that memory has changed over the years.
Celeste, for the simplicity of its graphics and its demand for the player to bring the characters to life through the lack of voice acting, is a beautiful and wholly real experience. The player will feel frustrated, defeated and unsure of how far they can take the player character up the mountain... but through that anger and bitterness, you push on, you complete a level or a single room, you collect that one strawberry that has eluded you for hours, eventually you reach the summit and the controller shaped barrier between you and the player character, it simply vanishes and you feel the exact catharsis that the character is supposed to be feeling. Celeste is a game that changed my life.
I think the best tales are those that pick a theme and go through with it all the way to the very end, even if it's uncomfortable to do so. Sometimes, there's no end in sight, but you've got to keep going down the winding path through to wherever it takes you
A Practical Guide to Evil reignited my creative writing juices, and otherwise crystallized a lot of things I think about and needed to hear into something I could truly enjoy.
Persona 5 gave me a proverbial wake up call about myself that I carry to this day. Persona 3 helped me deal with my grief after my grandfather had passed. Lost Judgment showed me how much the victims of bullying suffer, and if I spot it, I deal with it immediately.
As soon as you brought up Bridge to Terabithia I started tearing up. The fact that sometimes just recalling a story can bring back some of that initial reaction is amazing. Another book that's commonly impactful that comes to mind is Where the Red Fern Grows. My elementary school teacher was reading that one aloud to the classroom and when tragedy struck we all grieved collectively.
I think there are several ways that SOMA and Adastra changed me and my perspective forever, for their existential themes and both having some pretty remarkable genre deconstruction. The tragedy in both is also not to be understated. They encourage thought and reading deeper, and I love that about them because even years after they're done and I've played both, I can still learn more.
Ocarina of Time, when I was like six or seven. It was my first favourite video game and it taught me that games could be more than just really fun toys - that they could be profound and beautiful. Even now I still think back to that line from Shiek, "the flow of time is always cruel". It's something I've understood more and more with time.
For me a movie that I distinctly remember changing me was the Nightmare Before Christmas. I was super homesick one time in college (I was only 4 hours away but that's a difference when you've never left home before) and I was super depressed. At the end of my freshman year I watched this movie and got enamored with it. I wanted to learn more about the movie making process. So, I switched my major to Film. I wasn't as into the major as I hoped (thanks depression) but one thing I did really love despite my crippling depression was editing. It's a grueling process, but fun to see it come together. I'll watch a movie now, even something as simple as Transformers, and be in awe of the CGI for the Autobots and Decepticons. I'll watch Arcane and be enamored with the animation. I'll watch Titanic and be floored by the practical effects used to bring that gorgeous ship to life. Be in awe of how they broke her in half. Be impressed by the attention to detail. Only to then go online and see people talk about the usual talking points, vs what I'm seeing; the techniques, the themes, and technology used to create these stories. It is a lonely isle indeed. Part of me wishes I was a ignorant as the average movie going audience but the other part is glad I know how these stories are made so I can better appreciate them.
I wish more people would talk about those things too! I disliked the live action ATLAB on a bones deep level, and I agreed with the usual talking points, but it wasn’t until I saw a video of someone breaking down the terrible shot compositions and specific film making techniques that I really understood why I disliked it so much. Wish I had a more positive example, but this is the most concrete one I could think of 😅
For me it was the story of Elantris. Specifically, the story of Hrathen, the priest. The exploration of religion, morality, how faith drives us, what faith is, and everything else helped shape me so much in my relationship with religion.
Wheel of Time, the last book. The culmination of the story, the death of some of the main characters (including one that wasn't human). The way this grand tale spawning hundreds of hours of reading ended... That and the ending of All Dogs goto heaven, when I found out afterwards the little girl who voiced the girl (and that of Ducky in The Land Before Time) was killed by her father while the filming was being done...
I don't have words to explain the stories that impacted me, so I'll just leave a list. Black Sails. Hadestown. Arrival. Avatar the Last Airbender. Paddington 2. Haikyuu. Battlestar Galactica. Firefly.
Outer Wilds. Everyone should play it. Play it blind. Don't look into it. Just get it and start it. It's worth it every time. In my humble opinion. Lol. All The Wyers of Pern was the first book I had a visceral emotional reaction to as a child. The end of that hit me light a freight train. And diving into Dune for a while as a teen gave me a literal existential crisis. XD
Damn in. Why are you hitting me in the feelings like that! Getting me all reminiscing about all the stories, anime & cartoon I've listened to, read, or seen. Like you said, it makes you feel lonely...
the stories that changed me are games like nier, persona 5, outer wilds and what remains of edith finch tv shows like teen titans, avatar, death note and batman tas movies like a silent voice all of these mediums made me different and for that i will always love them
Games are unique from all other forms of media in how they are able to give their audience agency in stories. It is that very interactivity that defines the medium. But the truly, greatest games are not the ones that give the most agency, but the ones that know when to take it away again.
As a writer, I'm always split on how impactful fiction can and should be. On one hand, many of our highest grossing stories have environmentalist and anti-capitalist theme, telling stories of heroes who live by believing in human compassion, yet we still live in a planet that's literally crumbling apart by people who only think about serving themselves endlessly, and where millions use positive messages like tolerance to be toxic and hateful to strangers. Then on the other hand, we have fiction that have clear negative impacts on people. People who will literally send death threats to others for drawing their waifus in a way they don't agree with. Gacha games that use people's attachment to fictional characters to rob them blind. Fiction like isekais where the core message is "I hate the world and the world should revolve around me" and nothing else. I do dearly believe that fiction can inspire people into having better lives, to change the world for the better, but time and time again humans proved to take the wrong messages.
Disco Elysium, man. The final meeting of that game combined with the line "You are a miracle", recontextualising the entire human experience, the moments when the different parts of Harry come together to back him up in his grief and his acceptance of being the mildly insane guy that he is, not to mention EVERYTHING about Kim Kitsuragi, I just love it so much.
God this video perfectly describes what I have not been able to put to words for so long, and the fact it starts with nierautomata (my favorite piece of media ever) only makes this feel all the more real and understood, thank you.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons absolutely blew my mind when I first read it. The structure of the narrative was nothing that I'd ever experienced before, and the scale and quality of the world building (or universe building) just had me in awe. I already loved sci-fi but this really was so much more intricate than I thought it'd be. I know people give the last two books in the series a hard time, but I really loved the whole quadrilogy. In terms of short stories, A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin also blew me away, and kind of changed how I thought of short stories and just how powerful they can be.
My first time experiencing being overwhelmed by a game is Final Fantasy 9, I got absorbed and played intensely. That final FMV is a core memory. FYI. Bridge to Terabithia brought me to tears and is a movie which is a key stone with a couple friends (so much so I made them rewind the film so I didn’t go to sleep sad).
6 y/o me experiencing "you are not alone" for the first time, on a tiny screen, barely able to read the texts and with only a fraction of understanding of the story, shortly looking away to check if my friend next to me was sharing my thoughts (they did), will forever be burned into my brain. That moment has lost nothing of its power
Haibane Renmei was a story I watched because it influenced Megatokyo, showing up in some of the artists side projects. I watched it tell a slow, character focused story in a setting that was mysterious and never really explained much. I didn't understand it then, and on rewatching it to show some friends, I would say I still don't. But the experience of absorbing 13 episodes of the lives of these characters in an unfamiliar world, culminating in a single scene that still resonates, with everything leading to just a single sentence with so much weight behind it. That changed me, it showed me that lore and action and dialogue are tools that don't always need to be used, that storytelling is about knowing how to use them and when not to. I will spend hours watching, listening, reading, just to find that one moment of weight. And I will enjoy every bit of it.
Haibane Renmei is s show that I love and cherish as well. I used to be a capital W weeb, and while those days are long behind me I still come back to Haibane Renmei every so often.
The main moral of my favorite series, His Dark Materials, is that human spirit is motivated by story and experience. After watching this, I’m thinking no wonder it’s my favorite
I love that theirs someone whos from my country and who's entire job is related to worldbuilding/lore, a thing that interests me so much. Love the videos!
SWOTOR 2 resonated with me. Kreia and her vision of the world has been on my mind for, over a decade now... I can't hell but think of it when I write my own things
Honestly, I never thought of this until I read your comment, but YES! The scene on Nar Shadda where she shows you the two possible outcomes of helping or not helping the beggar has resonated with me since my first play through. Largely shaping my views on religion and philosophy moving forward. It was the first time I had been confronted with the concept that our choices, regardless of intention, can both lead to irreversible harm instead of good. I think about that scene a lot as an adult now, when I am faced with a choice. It forces me to be mindful, and it forces me to take accountability that I wouldn't have otherwise. It's also largely a likely spark that led to my eventual atheism. Haha
I have a few 1: children of memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, although the whole children of time series also probably counts, it really made me think about how my sense of self is really formed 2: voyager s4ep 12: mortal coil It reflected so many of my own fears of death n a visceral level 3: small gods by terry Pratchett The way it approached religion and fundamentalist ideas stuck with me, and the ending scene gets me every time
Small gods is probably the ine Discworld story that has helped me the most, to the point that I want to get a tattoo of "here and now, you are alive". Because yeah, there is the religious concepts that he explores, but more so the idea that we only have the present to make a change, that right now is the time to take action continuously drives me. Not in a way that's unthinking or uncritical, not in a way that's reactionary, but based on plans and ideas and through helping others. Small gods is the one that I always come back to when I'm struggling or feeling hopeless
Thank you Tim, for sharing another beautiful video. This is what I needed to smile today. I want to share stories in the passionate way that you do. So, as soon as I finish my college work for the day I’m going to write. And nothing can stop me. Thank you.
For me, it was Garth Nix' 'Abhorsen'. I was on a somewhat busy train home from uni at the time, and it took so much energy to not let it all out infront of complete strangers, as the characters that I had spent years reading about (I started its predecessor 'Lirael' nearly 6 years before it) had completed their journies, and that nearly broke me.
Hunger Games. I know it's probably a popular but those books touched me deeply. It helped me to face trauma from bullying in a way I hadn't before through Katniss's trauma. It helped me understand why I did things like hid in closets. And it helped me have more compassion for the suffering of those in a war and who lose family members in a wa I couldn't without experiencing it first-hand. The way Suzanne Collins portrayed PTSD for multiple characters just really touched me and has always stayed with me.
shame about how many young adult/tween girls completely missed the themes of the books and we got that trend of shitty YA dystopias with love triangles for a bit :
What an incredible video, Tim! This exact idea - the deep connection we all have with storytelling is exactly why I like to read and write. I absolutely need to check out that collection of yours when I have the chance.
The story that changed me forever, was the story that got me into reading again. House of Leaves. The book is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) solidified and it showed me the messiness of existance, the search for structure and the overwhelming, soul crushing need to be loved yet having the inability to accept love. It validated my traumas in ways that nobody could and because the writer is not a coward, he literally writes what the characters needed to do in order to get out of their trauma responses. And because it is so raw and vicaral, the people who have been through that hell, will also recognise the path out. It is beautiful. It helped me with acceptance that there are things in life (whether those are liars, abusers, a too narrow scope, a lack of understanding) that you will never understand. And that's okay. The moment that one digs into those mysteries from a place of fear is the exact place where hell begins. The theme of the book isnt to find answers. It is to find acceptance and closure. Which is my take. And what I love the most about the book is that it is so personal, so wild and so intense that 5 people can (and will) have wildly different opinions and thoughts about what the story is even about. I love it so, so much. And every other book became more rich because I could dig into 'what lies between the lines' and started with interpretting the text less about what it said, but what it meant to me. It set my mind free and I would not be where I am without it. This reminds me that I only started to read again after the video essay 'The Beauty of Annihiliation' from this channel and 'Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House' by Jacob Geller. So thank you guys. You gave me pieces of myself that I did not know I had lost in the first place.
The stories that really stayed with me....Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume ....it opened up the idea that I can talk to God as a friend. :) And The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The most magical story I've ever read as a kid.
Malazan Book of the Fallen does this better than any story I've read. The revelations at the end of the tale force you to reevaluate everything that came before.
Watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower for the first time altered my brain chemistry, it got recommended to me by the first real friend I had made after starting to overcome my depression at the time. It made me realise that we are not defined by our past, it's difficult to let go and branch out but you can't just let life pass you by in the hopes it will one day fix itself for you, you have to step away from the wall eventually.
I'm reading through Kentaro Miura's manga, Berserk, for the first time and I can feel it changing me. I've been confronting childhood trauma through it, but my partner is here to support me when it gets bad.
I can't name a single story that changed me as a person, but I can name stories that helped me realize parts of myself I never knew what they were. Like Steins Gate, where something about Ruka Urushibara hit me so close to home and hard that I put down the series when it was over and went "Oh fuck, she's me" Or how a character from a game I've come to loathe slowly grew into my heart to the point a single good drawing of her made me realize I liked girls a lot more than I thought. But I've never had a story that changed the way I see the world, or me as a person.
dragged me in with the automata, got me with the honoring of stories book, masterful selling my man. there's been a few stories that changed me, dnd games, old mangas, i wanted lotr too late in light to really be formative, but one that has stuck so completely with me is arcane, a tale of two sisters; it's not finished, and the sequel and finishing chapters will surely change how i think but i am profoundly changed by its existence and when i watched it.
I’ll never forget the end of both Bastion and Transistor. I played Transistor at a time in my life when I was finally feeling back to normal after surviving a time where my world felt like it was crumbling. So watching Red, in a similar situation, make the opposite decision gutted me. I remember crying, no, no, NOOO! And finally whispering at the screen, don’t do it. But there being nothing I could do to save her. I remember thinking about turning off my computer so that I wouldn’t have to press the final button. And it just made my resolve to never be back in that position myself unshakable.
Around 2010, when I was still a smoker, I went outside in the middle of a snowy, starry winter night, to have a cigarette, an owl landed on a tree branch about three metres from me. We just stared at each other for a long time. No one else but me and the white owl. That is one of my nicest experiences.
For me, the story that changed me was The Way Of Kings. Kaladin's segments and the insight on how he tries to be good, wants to be good, but his sense of sadness and depression sabotaging his attempts touched me. However, it was wwhen despite everything, despite his emotions and shit the world threw at him that Kaladin decided to stand again... that made me want to not give up on my hopes and aspirations too. Life is hard. It is. And sometimes one's own emotions hit you and isolate you. But who's to say that this is the end? No one but yourself declares that. Kaladin taught me to foght, and keep on holding to all the reasons I can to continue living and finding the good amidst all of the bad. After all, it only takes one leaf of piison given to a man in hopes of making them happy in order to have them be reboen into something greater.
Baldur's Gate 3, Nier Automata, Divinity Original sin 2, hell even Mass Effect Andromeda. These are just four stories that have resonated with me on deeply personal levels, and they are all on my list of inspirations and reasons for wanting to create and share stories with others. To build epic worlds full of love and tragedy.
@@scrollkeeper5272 Planet 4546B (the setting for the game) is top tier in my opinion It tells the narrative of protagonist Ryley Robinson, an engineer employed by a trans-gov corporation named Alterra, who in the year 2190, gets stranded there after crash-landing via the Aurora starship on the aforementioned ocean planet, and must find a way to escape the planet, but soon uncovers a dark secret about the planet's past.
Which story changed YOU forever?
Get 50% off A Catalogue for the End of Humanity and the audiobook HERE linktr.ee/timhickson
Beartown by Frederick Backman. It changed my perception of how impactful a story can be. I first read it when I was in 9th Grade
one spesfic episdoe of the orginal digimon anime. i watched it when i was pretty young; and the episode that skullgreymon comes out for the first time was the frirst time i ever saw a protagonist fail; and espically failing as a friend. it really stuck with me
I've never actually had a story change my life. Though, I find that others have fascinating.
The anime Oshi-No-Ko is a story about the Japanese stars known as Idols, it tackles all the deep dark issues with the entertainment industry like cancel culture, stalkers, and higher ups making poor decisions. After the first episode alone my mindset towards celebrities had completely changed, and when the main character is trying to stop his sister from achieving her Idol dreams, I actually was rooting for him. Which I wouldn’t have before seeing the first episode because it led to their mother’s death. Even though I knew what he was doing was wrong.
Soylent Green terrified me and showed me for the first time of how dark our world could truly be if we remain ignorant.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” The same way we never read a story twice as even if the text is the same, we are never the same reader. A story always with me is Princess Mononoke as i always keep the in mind the idea to see with eyes unclouded by hate.
Outer Wilds is that game for me. The curiosity, the loss, the thrill of putting things together - and how most of the logs you find are just as curious as you are, and how the story rewards you for that interest... wow, man, just wow
Boosting this with a comment because he NEEDS to see this. Outer Wilds is *that guy*
Came here for the outer wilds comment!!
This game gave me a reason to keep going after I escaped the lds church. I was told my entire life what would happen after death, and that every waking moment should be spent towards preparing for that death. And then I got Outer Wilds.
It spun tales of characters that I fell in love with again and again, it told stories of compassion and tragedy, it finally made me realize that the universe isn't controlled by anything, it simply _is_ and that no one is judging me for living the way I want to. (It also reminded me that life can be unfair, and that it's always been that way. But that's not a reason to give up, if anything, it's a reason to keep going. There's always little moments of happiness to be found, sparks of connection with people who you may never see again, and isn't that so incredibly special?)
And in the end, it told me that all will be forgotten. But instead of being put off by that fact, it gave me reason to find solace. You may fade from the record, but you are also _alive_ . You make your mark on the world before you dissolve into obscurity by the way you help people, the ways you try to make them smile, the ways they pay that back. And, aren't you glad you stopped to smell the pine trees?
So uh yeah, Outer Wilds is probably the most life-changing piece of media that I've ever stumbled across, and I'm so glad I did
Yes, I forgot to add that one to my list. It was frustrating at times and yet the mystery was very compelling.
Travellers starts playing in the background
We cri
I knew this would be down here, and I am so glad it's as high up in the comments as it is. It was the first thing to come to mind when I read the video title.
Delicious in Dungeon. The amazing switch up from comedy to existential horror and impeccable character drama while keeping the story as fun as it ever was and even funnier, because Ryoko Kui is just the goat of writing intertwined comedy that feeds drama that feeds comedy which all is built upon incredible characters and Tolkien level worldbuilding. For it all to begin with food and base desires of human condition.
I watched this recently and was blown away at how well everything in the story was handled! The show absolutely deserves the praise it's getting.
Amazing video! I love that you are so vulnerable with these discussions; I've sometimes felt ashamed or guilty at feeling such strong feelings from a story, especially when others I know haven't. It's very gratifying to hear that I am not weird 😅.
Nothing to be ashamed of. Just means that you're not yet dead inside which kinda is a good thing these days if you ask me ;-)
I understand your feeling especially if it's a sory that's very simple or ment for children. It's gratifying to know so many people experience this.
@KalikaRoo31, there's only an age minimum, not an age limit, for stories to be enjoyed.
Stories are stories and stories are meant to make you feel something. If you feel strongly about a story, you're not the weird one, you are enjoying the story as it was meant to be enjoyed.
Seeing this comment near the top made me almost click off after reading the first two lines of it. But it's not his fault
9:36 This hurts. I'm sitting here trying, raking my brain, TRYING to remember a story that changed me and I can't remember any. I've read most of the ones you mentioned and I was like 'oh, yeah, right, I read that once...I don't remember if it changed me". I have a very bad memory especially of my childhood. I KNOW that there has been stories that changed me, that made me cry, made me question life and my place in it but I just can't remember them. I can usually ignore my memory problems. The great thing about forgetting things is you usually don't miss them...until someone reminds you...and suddenly you're crying, mourning something you don't remember losing.
I can relate regarding not being able to remember a story that's changed me. He's a passionate guy, which is great to see, but I'm not a passionate person. I've read stories that have blown me away (figuratively), but I cannot remember any that I would say changed me. I'm still basically the same steadfast person now that I was at 2 or 3 years old, back to my earliest memories. I feel the same, just more knowledgeable. When I read stories, great or small, I always have a feeling like I'm remembering something I knew but forgot. They're simply reminding me of what I already know, in a way. Stories always feel familiar to me, as if they've always been a part of me. I also have a bad memory. I've loved a lot of stories, but I don't feel changed by any of them. You're not alone in this.
There's so many books I read as a kid/teen that I can only kind of vaguely remember but that I remember being strongly affected by. I'd say though that every story we encounter changes us a bit. It may not be dramatic or fully conscious, but even books, movies, or games that aren't very good overall can offer little ideas, insights, or inspiration that can change how you think about things.
Signalis is one that changed me, I can't even describe how, but after playing it two years ago, it has left me with this inescapable longing, a dread in my heart that has never faded. 10/10, would play it again, and ugly cry into my desk.
i loved signalis, except for the part where if you play it using resources sparingly and not killing monsters (typical behavior for the genre it is emulating), you get a bad ending. was very frustrating when the whole game is so long. like, not replayable for me levels of long.
Perhaps this is hell, but we made a promise
signalis is the most recent example i have of a story that changed me, like, jesus christ....... replaying the game for 100% achievements was daunting not because of the gameplay challenges, but because i knew i'd have to face this story again that makes me cry every time without fail. and it DID - HARD!!!!
One of the most profound experiences I had was in "Umineko: When They Cry" that develops from a deconstruction of the murder mystery genre to the exploration of humanity's relation to fiction and shows how stories are alive as long as we carry them (one of the messages getting out of it). And after getting to what it really is about, there was almost nothing that could come close. "Without love, it cannot be seen"
umineko and nier both are stories that changed my life but also my outlook on it for the better. truly unforgettable and unparalleled experiences
I hope we one day get a complete animated adaptation. I really need to sit down and read the novels.
AHHHHHHH.
I was just about to write about my own experience with Umineko!!! It literally reconfigured my brain (and made me go "oh, this makes sense, it's like Umineko" when all of my classmates got super confused about post structuralism xD). But yes, it's such an unforgettable experience. Definitely recommend everyone who hasn't yet you check it out!
For me, what nier changed was that I started to internalise that no matter how dark it gets, you can find a light. It might be in an exceptionally weird place, you might even have to become the light yourself... but it's there. Somewhere.
The only video game thats done this for me was Life is Strange. I honestly don't know how to explain the feelings it gave me, but after i finished it for the first time, i literally sat on my couch in silence for at least an hour. I didnt touch a video game for weeks and i retreated to my comfort show (ATLA), binged it, then followed it up with Korra. Finally after all that i settled back into a somewhat normal routine. That was 2 years ago. Even now i will think back and sit in silence for a bit. Violet Evergarden did something similar as well.
LIS was so good!
I wanted more and wasn't disappointed personally.
Check out TotalJunkieGamer. He does streams of LIS
One Piece. I took the plunge and got into it last year. I know the sheer length of the series turns a lot of people away, but man I'd give anything to watch it again for the first time. Oda has had his series planned out from the beginning and his writing reflects it beautifully. Heart wrenching moments, heavy topics, social commentary and found family all lie beneath the goofy Shonen wrapping. I think you'd really enjoy it, Tim!
The end of LOTR made me feel a strange kind of sorrow which has stuck with me.
Having read the Hobbit, I expected a similar conclusion. But when Frodo and Gandalf and the others left for Valinor, and with the coming of the age of men, it felt like the magic was seeping out of the world just as the story was slipping away from me.
when I heard you discuss the funeralists, I assumed this was some classic story by a highly acclaimed author, so I was impressed to discover you wrote it
Automata really did spend 4 playthroughs telling you everything you're doing is pointless, believing in things is dumb, and there's gonna be tragedy no matter how hard you try, but if you don't do something and don't believe in something then there's no point in existing. It's got such an existentially bleak outlook, and yet somehow, it's still the most cathartic and life-affirming piece of art I've ever encountered.
I was in third grade and my friend and I were looking at books in our classroom when I picked up Harry Potter. I was going to read it but she wanted to as well, and since she was a faster reader than I was she read it while I picked up Dear America, My Heart is on the Ground.
That book changed my life as a 9 year old by showing me how harsh it was to be a little native girl being sent to a missionary and being forced to give up her culture and watch her friend be buried alive. It was written in a diary format from the girls pov and it hit so hard. It changed me and the kind of books I was drawn to forever after that. I didn’t end up reading Harry Potter until I was 18 because of that fateful day 😅
When i was in early middle school my mom decided i was old enough to see a production of Les Miserables. That story has shaped my morality for the rest of my life, and i haven't shut up about it since. One of my most happy moments was receiving a text from a friend saying they'd just watched it, and they got it now.
I think a part of my childhood died when I read Flowers For Algenon in school. I saw people take turns reading parts of this piece out loud, each voice changing from bored to excited to scared to me. On my turn I was quiet. I had a paragraph, there were words on a page of a man yelling in a diner at the injustice he has just seen. But yet I couldn't say it, I went to the bathroom and cried. I will always love this story and I read the rest on my own.
this is quite possibly the best ad for your own book I've ever seen. If I had the means, I would be buying the book right now.
Saemm
Dishonored. You’re the Empress’s personal guard and you fail to stop her assassination and the kidnapping of her daughter.
The game reacts to your choices, specifically how violently you play the game. Obviously I’m pissed and I slay all the henchmen I come across until the game finally lets you rescue the daughter.
In a quiet moment at the home base of the game you walk by the princess drawing to pass the time and process the trauma she just went through.
She tells you she’s drawing you rescuing her, and she drew me as a terrifying smoke monster because of how violently I rescued her.
That hit me hard.
From that point until the end of the game I tried to play as pacifist as I could.
same bruh. her drawing you hits different. was barely able to pull back enough to change course
“The Inner Light” from StarTrek TNG is a master piece in this topic. The Enterprise encounters an ancient probe and it zaps Picard, usual stuff, but it isn’t nefarious, it has Picard live the life of one man living on a dying world. In the end, it was a desperate plea cast into space on the glimmer of hope that someone would find it and witness there in. The episode ends with Picard making the sort of flute they had and playing a song he learned; the last notes of a civilization millions of years dead.
not gonna lie... i love TNG and seen all the episodes like 100+ times and that one is among my least favorites lol. Its funny how each media hits us all differently.
Picard also ordered the probe be serviced and refueled and sent on its way onwards into the stars.
Probably your best video
You’ve perfected your style getting your thoughts, opinions, and emotions about an idea across so well here
Hey, just wanted to hop in to tell you that most of your videos/stories feel like that for me! You somehow manage to pull on my heartstrings every single time and I always feel changed in a small way after watching your videos. So thank you for doing what you do, because it's really special ❤
Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It was the first video game I played on my own without my husband. It showed me that video games (something I didn’t grow up with and knew nothing about) could be these beautiful pieces of storytelling art. There was a place for me here, I could enjoy and even get good at video games and my world got so much bigger. I’m now 600+ hours into Baldur’s Gate 3, with three journals full of terrible fanfiction and I’ve never been happier 😄
The very first of these for me was The Phantom Tollbooth. That book basically turned me from a kid who could read, but was mostly read to, into somebody who started reading basically everything I could get my hands on. It quite literally changed the entire trajectory of my life, set me on a track that would guide me for decades to come, just by being /exactly/ the right book for the person I was at the time.
Great choice! I remember having a similar experience with Phantom Tollbooth. I was forced to read it in elementary school and I remember it vividly as one of the times I went from being forced to read something to devouring it quicker than my teachers ever expected.
_The Beginner's Guide_ has fundamentally shifted my perception of video games, interpersonal relationships, storytelling, and just generally how humans communicate and understand each other.
Other things that have completely redefined how video games and storytelling work:
- The Stanley Parable (same dev as The Beginners Guide), especially the broom closet ending
- Spec Ops: The Line, iykyk
- most of the Supergiant Games catalogue, but especially Pyre - a rare game that turns all "fail states" into meaningful and interesting stories, to a degree that you might intentionally choose to lose the main gameplay loop to make the story go the way you want it
- Stray Gods, which somehow pulls off a real-time choose-your-own-adventure musical while also being a classical Greek myth about prophecy
- Journey (same composer as Stray Gods), which manages to have an emotionally impactful story with an unnamed mute protagonist and the occasional other player
i feel the same way about the beginner's guide!!! i will always talk my friend's ears off about it and make them play it going in blind, that's so key
The brightest example I've got of a story that's changed my life has to be Cowboy Bebop. Since I've always been a really sentimental and nostalgic person, its themes about being stuck in the past and living in your own shadow deeply resonated with me at the time I watched it. The characters, the music, and the aesthetic as a whole contribute to what is in my mind a truly special piece of fiction. And my favorite. I don't think a single day has gone by since I first watched it almost 4 years ago in which I haven't thought about it.
I have two:
Rain World fundamentally altered my brain chemistry, probably some of the best ludonarritive around. It also taught me that i'm not the protagonist, or even a side character, I'm part of a dense ecosystem of others, and that doesn't make life any less meaningful.
I Saw the TV Glow woke me up to the fact that I'm probably trans, and it feels like a lot of the scenes are laser-targeted to emotionallly annihilate you if you are closeted.
Great video! Sorry if this doesn't count, as it is nonfiction. David Attenborough's "Life on Earth" brought it home to me, at about 13, how old the world is and how important our brief time alive here is.
Nonfiction stories are still stories. They're told from a particular POV, and can change drastically if that POV is changed, so however "real" it is, it's still a story. Attenborough counts. :)
Thank you for this video. I was born a storyteller and still am one. I've written 3 unpublished books, and love stories with all of my heart. A while ago I was at an exploitative company and I used writing as my last hope to escape that. Creativity and writing is something to be enjoyed, putting that pressure and expectation on myself made everything I did not enough. Fast forward to quitting my job and working on my mental health, the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert has helped me change my perspective. I think that stories are beautiful, and all of them should be celebrated, including the broken ones told by 5 year olds. Thank you for speaking of the majesty of stories. Please continue creating(: And my fellow storytellers, don't be so hard on yourselves. 'done is better than perfect' and 'You are not required to save the world with your creativity; your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words, it also doesn't have to be important' Your art is something to be enjoyed and celebrated.
I always have to pause whenever you upload a new video. Because chances are I get so inspired that i have to drop every personal project im curently busy with and start writing again.
The first one I can remember really changing me is Good Omens. It was the first Terry Pratchett book I ever read (my dad lent me his copy in about 2011) and it really hit me with its humour, its themes of fate vs free will, determinism, and what the nature of Good or Evil are
Sounds weird but Fight Club (the movie). Seeing the way that the story satirizes everything, including itself, was such a mind blowing experience. I still watch it every year and I still find new things to fall in love with
The World Ends With You. It was the right story at the right time for me. I was roughly the age of the characters and deeply related to the main character especially who is not a good person at the beginning of the story. It made me realize that I also was a terrible person at the time and his journey helped my own. I can't say that it was the deeply profound feeling you described in the video because I don't engage with stories that way, but I internalized the message of that story and strife to emulate it in my own life.
Bastion. I will never forget how I felt playing the end of bastion. the entire game is structured around a premise and it twists at the end and I sat there for 15 minutes, paralyzed by the intensity of that twist. truly one of the best games I have ever played.
Always a good Saturday when there's a new Hello Future Me video
Mob psycho 100 is probably the first story i cam across where i saw myself represented. I'd always been reading with a vague desire to see myself in the characters, i always related and empathized before this point, but mob psycho was the first to make me go oh thats me. Up until this point i hadnt realized how emotional repressed i was. I recognized the potential for violence in me and i had always valued kindness but mob psycho was the first story to give me a character who did the same thing and had the same values and needed to grow beyond it.
There's this arch in mob psycho where he trapped in a dream world, basically alone, being bullied and emotionally tortured by the other people in the world. Hes trying so hard to maintain hope in the face of cruelty and isolation. He almost loses himelf to anger when a friend breaks through the dream and remimds him the dream isn't real. It reminds him how lucky he is in real life to have hi friends and family. It reminds that he can be courageous because there are people he loves waiting for him. Mob is so kind and do... at times innocent. But its not coming from a place of ignorance. Its coming from an internal conflict between the violence of his emotions, the violence that the outside world demands from him, and the gentle heart at his core. Mob psycho likes to present 3rd options. Its okay to run away. Its okay to turn to the adults in your life or fall back on friends. Sometimes true heroics is talking things out. Reaching an understanding. And sometimes people are too immature or cruel for talking to work and its a struggle to break through to them without violence, without getting hurt yourself.
Mob is a gentle character, his core philosophy is kindness, he tries to nurture those around him and even himself. And it hard. This story acknowledges that maintaining a calm gentle nature is often costly. That it gets you tken advantage of, that often times your own limit and own potential to be cruel and violent get thrown back in your face over and over again. But it never treats kindness as a weakness. Its the power hungry and arragont who are shown to be weak and immature. There philosophies and identities are far more fragile than mobs, because theyre usually built on a lie. Might makes right. Im the best because im the most powerful. I need this to be a whole person. The only way to make it in this dog eat dog world is to have the sharpest teeth
Mob psycho strips the characters of their lies and shows the people they are with out power. Desperate, lonely, angry, stupid, shallow. And over and over we see the kindness reach people past the violence and anger. We see people grow and blossom with mobs gentle nurturing. Characters often have to be humbled first but it takes a lot of strength to reach out to people who hurt you. It takes a lot of vulnerability and sense of self. And it can still backfire, it can still get you hurt.
I guess the thing thats most striking about mob psycho for me is how earnest it is. Its conflict is something I identify with. It emotionally repressed but highly empathetic main character is something i personally relate to. And its earnest desire for kindness, nurturing, redemption, and self improvement are things that motivate me.
Mob psycho is special to me because for the first time i felt seen and it took the journey further. It gave me options and criticisms and ways for me to grow
For me, it’s the story that is the Mass Effect video game trilogy. Although I’m an avid reader too, the sometimes hundreds of hours you immerse yourself into a video game story should not be underestimated in the impact it can have on you.
The first story that truly changed me was "The Giving Tree". I was really young at the time, but I remember feeling so sad for both the tree and the boy. It genuinely changed how I thought about generosity and asking for help in a way I can't even put into words. Suddenly I was very aware of the things I was willing to give and what I was willing to ask for.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has left me going out of it with a sensation I had never had before, and never since. I do not know quite how to describe it.
Undertale fundamentally changed how I played every single game after it.
I am sitting on my couch on a cold and grey sunday morning with tears streaming down my face. I can mot remember a single instance of being fundamentally changed by a story despite consuming them for all of my thirty-six years of life. I feel like I have missed out on or failed some aspect of my humanity and my soul is as grey and barren as the sky outside. Thank you for making me feel something, even if it ended up being more akin to Void than Joy. It was something i needed to realize.
hi I feel about the same here. i had to really think about it to even remember one. perhaps you just don't remember, but regardless, at least after this maybe we would pay more attention when a story does change our life again :')
The way you talk about stories makes me feel seen and like there are other people like me out there after all, even if I didn't grow up around them or have them around me now.
Black Sails - my life literally has never been the same after I got to the scene where the queer protagonists says 'not only am I not going to ask society for forgiveness after they ruined my life and called me loathsome and a monster, it's actually me who will decide whether to forgive them'.
James Flint is honestly one of the most inspiring characters I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. Black Sails also changed my life.
Edit: I also don't want to forget Miranda. The scene where she stands up for Flint...
The sandman, i love how stories are portrayed in it. Its so beautiful because stories are the most powerful things ever. I love death too, the scene of a man looking up at her at the end of worlds end and describing how he will love her all his life, like his oldest deepest friend
Edit: i bought the book
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander - as a 10 year old who didn’t know who I was, but wanting to accomplish something important, journeying with him as he became a man changed me. I have returned to this over and over again.
The original Homeworld. When you jump back to the Earth and the debris of the last space station greets you while Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings calls all the longings of lost hope… The anguish of that moment is something I’ve never experienced in a video game before or since.
“The Death of Ivan Ilyich” by Tolstoy - two years after being diagnosed with brain cancer, laying in bed, reading about Ivan’s loneliness and the humiliation of dying, it was so sad and distressing I couldn’t do anything but lay there and weep for hours. I couldn’t explain it to my family, especially because they have been there with me throughout the hospital, the surgery, the chemo, all of it.
Percy jackson, first book I read. It both changed my life and taught me the value of a simple unheroic life.
Worm, its hard to describe how many ways Worm changed me
Worm is one I still come back to like, every couple of years
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin had me thinking about how there's no such thing as an objective ideal. One person's Paradise could be another person's Hell, and much harm is done by people who think they have all the answers and try to force others to conform to their idea of perfection.
Bridge to Terabithia was one of my favorite movies as a kid because I could relate to every single character. My mom took me to the theater to see it one Saturday randomly- she never did that. Now, after my mom has passed, that movie always reminds me of her. I don’t know why she decided to take me- I hadn’t even heard of the movie before- but I’m so glad that I have that memory now. It has made the bittersweet feeling even stronger and I love how that memory has changed over the years.
Celeste, for the simplicity of its graphics and its demand for the player to bring the characters to life through the lack of voice acting, is a beautiful and wholly real experience. The player will feel frustrated, defeated and unsure of how far they can take the player character up the mountain... but through that anger and bitterness, you push on, you complete a level or a single room, you collect that one strawberry that has eluded you for hours, eventually you reach the summit and the controller shaped barrier between you and the player character, it simply vanishes and you feel the exact catharsis that the character is supposed to be feeling. Celeste is a game that changed my life.
I think the best tales are those that pick a theme and go through with it all the way to the very end, even if it's uncomfortable to do so.
Sometimes, there's no end in sight, but you've got to keep going down the winding path through to wherever it takes you
A Practical Guide to Evil reignited my creative writing juices, and otherwise crystallized a lot of things I think about and needed to hear into something I could truly enjoy.
Persona 5 gave me a proverbial wake up call about myself that I carry to this day.
Persona 3 helped me deal with my grief after my grandfather had passed.
Lost Judgment showed me how much the victims of bullying suffer, and if I spot it, I deal with it immediately.
As soon as you brought up Bridge to Terabithia I started tearing up. The fact that sometimes just recalling a story can bring back some of that initial reaction is amazing. Another book that's commonly impactful that comes to mind is Where the Red Fern Grows. My elementary school teacher was reading that one aloud to the classroom and when tragedy struck we all grieved collectively.
I think there are several ways that SOMA and Adastra changed me and my perspective forever, for their existential themes and both having some pretty remarkable genre deconstruction. The tragedy in both is also not to be understated. They encourage thought and reading deeper, and I love that about them because even years after they're done and I've played both, I can still learn more.
3:21 i remember that. I was sad i could never re experience Ddlc for the first time ever again
Ocarina of Time, when I was like six or seven. It was my first favourite video game and it taught me that games could be more than just really fun toys - that they could be profound and beautiful. Even now I still think back to that line from Shiek, "the flow of time is always cruel". It's something I've understood more and more with time.
For me a movie that I distinctly remember changing me was the Nightmare Before Christmas. I was super homesick one time in college (I was only 4 hours away but that's a difference when you've never left home before) and I was super depressed. At the end of my freshman year I watched this movie and got enamored with it. I wanted to learn more about the movie making process. So, I switched my major to Film. I wasn't as into the major as I hoped (thanks depression) but one thing I did really love despite my crippling depression was editing. It's a grueling process, but fun to see it come together.
I'll watch a movie now, even something as simple as Transformers, and be in awe of the CGI for the Autobots and Decepticons. I'll watch Arcane and be enamored with the animation. I'll watch Titanic and be floored by the practical effects used to bring that gorgeous ship to life. Be in awe of how they broke her in half. Be impressed by the attention to detail.
Only to then go online and see people talk about the usual talking points, vs what I'm seeing; the techniques, the themes, and technology used to create these stories. It is a lonely isle indeed. Part of me wishes I was a ignorant as the average movie going audience but the other part is glad I know how these stories are made so I can better appreciate them.
I wish more people would talk about those things too! I disliked the live action ATLAB on a bones deep level, and I agreed with the usual talking points, but it wasn’t until I saw a video of someone breaking down the terrible shot compositions and specific film making techniques that I really understood why I disliked it so much. Wish I had a more positive example, but this is the most concrete one I could think of 😅
For me it was the story of Elantris.
Specifically, the story of Hrathen, the priest. The exploration of religion, morality, how faith drives us, what faith is, and everything else helped shape me so much in my relationship with religion.
There's stories that gave me fresh perspectives on things but I don't think I've ever had this feeling of being changed by it.
Same. I like his passion, though. :)
Thanks For this! ALL your videos are awesome! Your hardwork is always appreciated 😊😊😊❤❤
Wheel of Time, the last book. The culmination of the story, the death of some of the main characters (including one that wasn't human). The way this grand tale spawning hundreds of hours of reading ended... That and the ending of All Dogs goto heaven, when I found out afterwards the little girl who voiced the girl (and that of Ducky in The Land Before Time) was killed by her father while the filming was being done...
I don't have words to explain the stories that impacted me, so I'll just leave a list. Black Sails. Hadestown. Arrival. Avatar the Last Airbender. Paddington 2. Haikyuu. Battlestar Galactica. Firefly.
Outer Wilds. Everyone should play it. Play it blind. Don't look into it. Just get it and start it. It's worth it every time. In my humble opinion. Lol.
All The Wyers of Pern was the first book I had a visceral emotional reaction to as a child. The end of that hit me light a freight train. And diving into Dune for a while as a teen gave me a literal existential crisis. XD
Damn in. Why are you hitting me in the feelings like that! Getting me all reminiscing about all the stories, anime & cartoon I've listened to, read, or seen. Like you said, it makes you feel lonely...
Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures.
the stories that changed me are games like nier, persona 5, outer wilds and what remains of edith finch tv shows like teen titans, avatar, death note and batman tas movies like a silent voice all of these mediums made me different and for that i will always love them
Games are unique from all other forms of media in how they are able to give their audience agency in stories. It is that very interactivity that defines the medium. But the truly, greatest games are not the ones that give the most agency, but the ones that know when to take it away again.
As a writer, I'm always split on how impactful fiction can and should be. On one hand, many of our highest grossing stories have environmentalist and anti-capitalist theme, telling stories of heroes who live by believing in human compassion, yet we still live in a planet that's literally crumbling apart by people who only think about serving themselves endlessly, and where millions use positive messages like tolerance to be toxic and hateful to strangers.
Then on the other hand, we have fiction that have clear negative impacts on people. People who will literally send death threats to others for drawing their waifus in a way they don't agree with. Gacha games that use people's attachment to fictional characters to rob them blind. Fiction like isekais where the core message is "I hate the world and the world should revolve around me" and nothing else.
I do dearly believe that fiction can inspire people into having better lives, to change the world for the better, but time and time again humans proved to take the wrong messages.
Disco Elysium, man. The final meeting of that game combined with the line "You are a miracle", recontextualising the entire human experience, the moments when the different parts of Harry come together to back him up in his grief and his acceptance of being the mildly insane guy that he is, not to mention EVERYTHING about Kim Kitsuragi, I just love it so much.
God this video perfectly describes what I have not been able to put to words for so long, and the fact it starts with nierautomata (my favorite piece of media ever) only makes this feel all the more real and understood, thank you.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons absolutely blew my mind when I first read it. The structure of the narrative was nothing that I'd ever experienced before, and the scale and quality of the world building (or universe building) just had me in awe. I already loved sci-fi but this really was so much more intricate than I thought it'd be. I know people give the last two books in the series a hard time, but I really loved the whole quadrilogy.
In terms of short stories, A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin also blew me away, and kind of changed how I thought of short stories and just how powerful they can be.
My first time experiencing being overwhelmed by a game is Final Fantasy 9, I got absorbed and played intensely. That final FMV is a core memory.
FYI. Bridge to Terabithia brought me to tears and is a movie which is a key stone with a couple friends (so much so I made them rewind the film so I didn’t go to sleep sad).
6 y/o me experiencing "you are not alone" for the first time, on a tiny screen, barely able to read the texts and with only a fraction of understanding of the story, shortly looking away to check if my friend next to me was sharing my thoughts (they did), will forever be burned into my brain. That moment has lost nothing of its power
20:49 best part of the whole vid: 0 . 0 *oh my gosh there's an owl*
That was hilarious 😂 Then again, owls are really cool. I might have done the same thing. 😅
Haibane Renmei was a story I watched because it influenced Megatokyo, showing up in some of the artists side projects. I watched it tell a slow, character focused story in a setting that was mysterious and never really explained much. I didn't understand it then, and on rewatching it to show some friends, I would say I still don't. But the experience of absorbing 13 episodes of the lives of these characters in an unfamiliar world, culminating in a single scene that still resonates, with everything leading to just a single sentence with so much weight behind it. That changed me, it showed me that lore and action and dialogue are tools that don't always need to be used, that storytelling is about knowing how to use them and when not to. I will spend hours watching, listening, reading, just to find that one moment of weight. And I will enjoy every bit of it.
Haibane Renmei is s show that I love and cherish as well. I used to be a capital W weeb, and while those days are long behind me I still come back to Haibane Renmei every so often.
The main moral of my favorite series, His Dark Materials, is that human spirit is motivated by story and experience. After watching this, I’m thinking no wonder it’s my favorite
I love that theirs someone whos from my country and who's entire job is related to worldbuilding/lore, a thing that interests me so much. Love the videos!
SWOTOR 2 resonated with me. Kreia and her vision of the world has been on my mind for, over a decade now... I can't hell but think of it when I write my own things
Honestly, I never thought of this until I read your comment, but YES!
The scene on Nar Shadda where she shows you the two possible outcomes of helping or not helping the beggar has resonated with me since my first play through. Largely shaping my views on religion and philosophy moving forward. It was the first time I had been confronted with the concept that our choices, regardless of intention, can both lead to irreversible harm instead of good. I think about that scene a lot as an adult now, when I am faced with a choice. It forces me to be mindful, and it forces me to take accountability that I wouldn't have otherwise. It's also largely a likely spark that led to my eventual atheism. Haha
I have a few
1: children of memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, although the whole children of time series also probably counts, it really made me think about how my sense of self is really formed
2: voyager s4ep 12: mortal coil
It reflected so many of my own fears of death n a visceral level
3: small gods by terry Pratchett
The way it approached religion and fundamentalist ideas stuck with me, and the ending scene gets me every time
Small gods is probably the ine Discworld story that has helped me the most, to the point that I want to get a tattoo of "here and now, you are alive".
Because yeah, there is the religious concepts that he explores, but more so the idea that we only have the present to make a change, that right now is the time to take action continuously drives me. Not in a way that's unthinking or uncritical, not in a way that's reactionary, but based on plans and ideas and through helping others.
Small gods is the one that I always come back to when I'm struggling or feeling hopeless
Thank you Tim, for sharing another beautiful video. This is what I needed to smile today. I want to share stories in the passionate way that you do. So, as soon as I finish my college work for the day I’m going to write. And nothing can stop me. Thank you.
For me, it was Garth Nix' 'Abhorsen'. I was on a somewhat busy train home from uni at the time, and it took so much energy to not let it all out infront of complete strangers, as the characters that I had spent years reading about (I started its predecessor 'Lirael' nearly 6 years before it) had completed their journies, and that nearly broke me.
Amazing you upload this video today as I just read the story last night.
The Dark Tower series from Stephen King was definitely life changing for me.
Also, of course, Fight Club, but we can't talk about that.
Hunger Games. I know it's probably a popular but those books touched me deeply. It helped me to face trauma from bullying in a way I hadn't before through Katniss's trauma. It helped me understand why I did things like hid in closets. And it helped me have more compassion for the suffering of those in a war and who lose family members in a wa I couldn't without experiencing it first-hand. The way Suzanne Collins portrayed PTSD for multiple characters just really touched me and has always stayed with me.
shame about how many young adult/tween girls completely missed the themes of the books and we got that trend of shitty YA dystopias with love triangles for a bit :
Eragon, Enders game, Life of Pi, surly you’re joking Mr. Fynmen. The Game of thrones series, The way of Kings.
What an incredible video, Tim! This exact idea - the deep connection we all have with storytelling is exactly why I like to read and write. I absolutely need to check out that collection of yours when I have the chance.
The story that changed me forever, was the story that got me into reading again.
House of Leaves. The book is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) solidified and it showed me the messiness of existance, the search for structure and the overwhelming, soul crushing need to be loved yet having the inability to accept love. It validated my traumas in ways that nobody could and because the writer is not a coward, he literally writes what the characters needed to do in order to get out of their trauma responses. And because it is so raw and vicaral, the people who have been through that hell, will also recognise the path out.
It is beautiful. It helped me with acceptance that there are things in life (whether those are liars, abusers, a too narrow scope, a lack of understanding) that you will never understand. And that's okay. The moment that one digs into those mysteries from a place of fear is the exact place where hell begins.
The theme of the book isnt to find answers. It is to find acceptance and closure. Which is my take. And what I love the most about the book is that it is so personal, so wild and so intense that 5 people can (and will) have wildly different opinions and thoughts about what the story is even about.
I love it so, so much. And every other book became more rich because I could dig into 'what lies between the lines' and started with interpretting the text less about what it said, but what it meant to me. It set my mind free and I would not be where I am without it.
This reminds me that I only started to read again after the video essay 'The Beauty of Annihiliation' from this channel and 'Control, Anatomy, and the Legacy of the Haunted House' by Jacob Geller.
So thank you guys. You gave me pieces of myself that I did not know I had lost in the first place.
I’m currently reading House of Leaves! I’m only halfway through but it has such fascinating depths I could never of guessed going into it.
The stories that really stayed with me....Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume ....it opened up the idea that I can talk to God as a friend. :) And The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The most magical story I've ever read as a kid.
Malazan Book of the Fallen does this better than any story I've read. The revelations at the end of the tale force you to reevaluate everything that came before.
Watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower for the first time altered my brain chemistry, it got recommended to me by the first real friend I had made after starting to overcome my depression at the time. It made me realise that we are not defined by our past, it's difficult to let go and branch out but you can't just let life pass you by in the hopes it will one day fix itself for you, you have to step away from the wall eventually.
I'm reading through Kentaro Miura's manga, Berserk, for the first time and I can feel it changing me. I've been confronting childhood trauma through it, but my partner is here to support me when it gets bad.
I can't name a single story that changed me as a person, but I can name stories that helped me realize parts of myself I never knew what they were.
Like Steins Gate, where something about Ruka Urushibara hit me so close to home and hard that I put down the series when it was over and went "Oh fuck, she's me" Or how a character from a game I've come to loathe slowly grew into my heart to the point a single good drawing of her made me realize I liked girls a lot more than I thought.
But I've never had a story that changed the way I see the world, or me as a person.
dragged me in with the automata, got me with the honoring of stories book, masterful selling my man. there's been a few stories that changed me, dnd games, old mangas, i wanted lotr too late in light to really be formative, but one that has stuck so completely with me is arcane, a tale of two sisters; it's not finished, and the sequel and finishing chapters will surely change how i think but i am profoundly changed by its existence and when i watched it.
I’ll never forget the end of both Bastion and Transistor. I played Transistor at a time in my life when I was finally feeling back to normal after surviving a time where my world felt like it was crumbling. So watching Red, in a similar situation, make the opposite decision gutted me. I remember crying, no, no, NOOO! And finally whispering at the screen, don’t do it. But there being nothing I could do to save her. I remember thinking about turning off my computer so that I wouldn’t have to press the final button. And it just made my resolve to never be back in that position myself unshakable.
Also , another incredible video! I’m loving these ones! And the story!! You have me hooked, I’m off to order the book
The Lord of the Rings. Even the smallest person can change the fortunes of all
Around 2010, when I was still a smoker, I went outside in the middle of a snowy, starry winter night, to have a cigarette, an owl landed on a tree branch about three metres from me. We just stared at each other for a long time. No one else but me and the white owl. That is one of my nicest experiences.
For me, the story that changed me was The Way Of Kings. Kaladin's segments and the insight on how he tries to be good, wants to be good, but his sense of sadness and depression sabotaging his attempts touched me. However, it was wwhen despite everything, despite his emotions and shit the world threw at him that Kaladin decided to stand again... that made me want to not give up on my hopes and aspirations too. Life is hard. It is. And sometimes one's own emotions hit you and isolate you. But who's to say that this is the end? No one but yourself declares that. Kaladin taught me to foght, and keep on holding to all the reasons I can to continue living and finding the good amidst all of the bad. After all, it only takes one leaf of piison given to a man in hopes of making them happy in order to have them be reboen into something greater.
Baldur's Gate 3, Nier Automata, Divinity Original sin 2, hell even Mass Effect Andromeda. These are just four stories that have resonated with me on deeply personal levels, and they are all on my list of inspirations and reasons for wanting to create and share stories with others. To build epic worlds full of love and tragedy.
What about Subnautica, which is one of my favourite examples of compelling worldbuilding
@@unicorntomboy9736 A great example, never played though
@@scrollkeeper5272 Planet 4546B (the setting for the game) is top tier in my opinion
It tells the narrative of protagonist Ryley Robinson, an engineer employed by a trans-gov corporation named Alterra, who in the year 2190, gets stranded there after crash-landing via the Aurora starship on the aforementioned ocean planet, and must find a way to escape the planet, but soon uncovers a dark secret about the planet's past.
Black Beauty is probably the first story that really resonated with me. It was the first book I read by myself.
This heals me more than therapy