Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

1y ago

What was the piece of media so emotionally overwhelming you just stopped it?

243 comments

Grave of the Fireflies, a Ghibli film. Stopped it a couple times. Ended up finishing it eventually, wish I never had.
- This exists and is one of my favorite / most horrible shelf decorations
- I've heard so much about it and never watched it. I love the Ghiblis though
  
  It's not Miyazaki but it's a masterpiece nonetheless.
- Yeah, that film crushed me.
- I’ve never watched the movie. The synopsis alone crushed me. I couldn’t handle actually seeing it.
- I watched it 20 years ago and still can't bring myself to watch it again.
- Came here to mention this, you beat me to it.
  Hands down the saddest movie I've ever seen
- Spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen it.
  I watched it with my girlfriend and the part about the bones in the tin candy container at the start of the movie flew over her head. She was hopeful that the girl might survive, I realized she missed the bones because she got a smidge hopeful when they went to see the doctor.

You humans will laugh, but for me, it was Marley and Me, a film that allows you to watch a dog live and then die.
i was a fun loving guy with a golden and I met my Jennifer Anniston so it was just too similar and painful and remembering my dog makes me sad.
- There's a reason https://www.doesthedogdie.com/ exists after all
  
  Any time my wife and I are watching a horror movie and see a pet, I immediately pause and go check.
  If the answer is yes, I look for the times to skip, and ask her if she wants to keep watching knowing what happens.
  So far we've only ever skipped parts for two movies, usually it's just a "let's find another movie"
- i saw that as a kid the second the tone got serious i ran to my room. still never finished it

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye. i can handle horror just fine, but Echoes of the Eye is on entirely another level of horror than most everything else. i was only able to complete about a third of it before i got too psyched out to continue
- Is that some kind of DLC to an original game?
  
  It is and both are masterpieces. I don’t like horror games and I bore through it. There is a setting to reduce frights but it does a good job using darkness and sound to freak you out. At least from the perspective of a person who doesn’t normally go for that kind of thing.
- Hey. If you ever want to give it another go there is a spoiler I can share that will greatly help with those portions.
- Eote is a masterpiece and I had to rly battle my fears to do it. Unlike the base game, you can play it in smaller pieces if playing it gets overwhelming
- If you're still interested in finishing it:
  Besides the tip given by someone else there's also a mod for PC that makes the scary parts significantly less scary: https://outerwildsmods.com/mods/eotebrighterdreams

The George Floyd video.
I watched maybe a minute of it the day it came out and that was enough for me forever.
- Same there. I watched a lot of horror movies and another kinds of gore, and it felt like I almost lost my senses at all, but the way Chauvin did that filled me with so much confusion, hatred and sadness I couldn't stand watching it. So routine, so senseless, like he's used to do this daily and likes it. I felt sick. And I want this mfer to rot.
  
  With horror movies, you at least have that layer of knowing it's not real. Seeing the real horrors of mankind without that to protect you is truly disturbing.

Videos of my now deceased sister playing violin.
The Tragically Hip - Ahead By a Century
I will cross a room to turn the radio off when it is playing.
Both died from the same brain cancer and I can't handle listening or watching either of them yet.
- Specifically just that song or any Hip?
  
  Specifically that song, it was my favourite song of theirs. I tuned in late to their last concert when it aired on CBC, I thought I must have missed them singing it because I was so late but it came on next. I was happy I didn't miss it but I cried as they sang it.
  I have heard parts of it in the years since then, I have probably heard the whole song a few times but it hurts to hear it.
- That sounds really rough. :(
  I find stuff like this doesn't ever change for me, even though it may hurt less over time. I like knowing I have it, but ... I don't need to watch it.

Anything that maximizes embarrassment or cringe. Can’t watch most Will Ferrell or Borat. Ugh, it makes me so uncomfortable.
- Maybe controversial but I had that with the office.
  
  Same, Steve Carrell's character almost causes me physical pain
  
  I've seen every episode of the office at least 4 times (and some much more) with the exceptions of Scott's Tots. Watched it once and never went back. That one was too much.
  
  It's not really controversial. Cringe is used to full effect in The Office, and it's absolutely something that a lot of people don't enjoy.
  I love The Office, and I do think that once you know the characters, the cringe gets less intense, but it just isn't going to jive with everyone.
  
  Same. I'm someone who likes the kind of Borat comedy, listed above, and I loved the British version of The Office, but the American adaptation of The Office is so cringe it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Weirdly, I really enjoy Parks and Recreation, it is a very similar show with similar writing.

Don't Look Up. As an environmental biologist, I feel they really nailed the constant feeling of crisis that everyone either chooses to ignore or use for greed. There came a point where I couldn't stomach it anymore, I watch TV to escape reality not be reminded of it lol.

The news
- Same. For many years now. I didnt even remember that some people actually watch the news regularly.
- There was a news station I saw while vacationing in the Smokies. They called it "news with a heart". They did all the same news stories, bit didn't dwell on the death toll or show video of the carnage. It was the first time I didn't become enraged by the news.
  We have a drinking game for the NBC Nightly News. Drink any time they say "breaking news", "disaster", "epidemic" or show people crying. You won't make it through the news.
- The correct answer.
- I have a friend who regularly shares the latest news that brings him mental anguish, followed by messages along the lines of "the world is doomed, society is trash, how can anyone sleep soundly at night knowing the terrors that are happening this very second". I don't know why he still follows them. It's not like he takes action against these things, and most often he can't do anything against them even if he wanted to, and this feeling of powerlessness, helplessness, hopelessness, is weighing him down so much.

I had to unsubscribe from NotJustBikes's YouTube channel because I could no longer bear thinking about just how thoroughly and irreversably fucked the city planning is out here in the American midwest, and how there's less than a gnat's fart in the wind I can do about any of it.
- Will be moving to Midwest from Italy soon. My heart hurts already. I lived in the Midwest for ten years and worked with urban planners there so I know the pain all too well.

Breaking bad
SPOILERS
Specifically this was 2 episodes away from the end of the show but I just could not handle it. It was just so depressing. Family and friends being murdered, almost everything walt has worked for squandered, Skyler trying to kill him, having to steal the child and Skyler's anguish. Man it was just too much to handle because EVERYTHING was just crumbling and collapsing in on itself.
What made it cut so deep is that Walter tried to provide for his family, so they could have a good life and for a time was extremely successful. After multiple missteps, some of his family is murderer or they hate him, trying desperately to remove him from their lives and resent his very existence. While Walter still loved them, he realized his and his family's was utterly ruined. The second hand crushing and crippling guilt was too painful to bear.
Waler's psychopathy and coldness was also building up at this point, killing, using and manipulating a lot of people. He began with good intentions but directly and indirectly ended and ruined countless people's lives.
- He didn't do it for his family
  He didn't want to die miserable with no respect from anyone.
  He wanted to show the world he was great. He never was going to have "enough" that he would quit and die anonymously. He was going to keep going bigger and bigger until he was caught or killed.
  The whole show is a dying man's ego trip.
- I think you missed a good chunk of the point of that show. It was pretty clear after the first few seasons that Walt was not doing it to provide for his family. Walt loved his family but loved his job and power more. There were countless times that he could have washed his hands of it and walked away to go back to teaching. He chose to stay in even when it was pretty damn clear it was destroying his family and putting them in extreme danger.
  
  Finally, a school teacher has some leverage and is treated like a real man. By making drugs, yeah. What's your problem?
- I understand and respect your decision to not continue, but I have to let you know that your feelings on it are totally justified and even vindicated in the final episodes that you didn't watch. The misery and frustration is intentional. The arc of struggle, glory/success, and awful consequences are kinda the whole point of the show, and there's almost some amount of cathartic redemption in seeing Walter realize just how badly he has fucked up and what he does with that knowledge. I'm being intentionally vague in case you or others decide to go back and finish, even though it's pretty unlikely.
  One of my favorite things about the show is that it's very much a show that encourages discussion about morality in a very gradual way. Most people would agree that Walter starts off as a decent man, and he's become an evil man somewhere along the way, but testimony differs from viewer to viewer about where exactly that line was along the way. So I'm curious, as somebody who didn't finish specifically because of what a spectacular cautionary tale it was, where was the line for you? At what point did you stop rooting for Walter White?
  
  Wait, most people agree that Walter starts off as a decent man?
- I also quit in the last season - not sure what episode but it was towards then end. Enough time has past that I have no interest in finishing it. I don't get so involved in series since then.
- I quit on the 4th or 5th episode, it was already too much anxiety

Not me but when my wife was pregnant, the scene in Homeward Bound where Sassy is swept away in the river left her in tears. She stopped the movie and never watched it again lol.
- I guess the "lol" is because

The prologue of The Last of Us. (The game, not the show.)
That one broke me. I stopped the game, ugly cried for a bit, pulled my shit together then went upstairs and my daughter and I went out for ice cream.
- You mean, the beginning of the first game with Sarah? Yeah, it was dark. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue that game after that, because usually, usually, that's a thing directors leave for ending. It felt anticlimactic and wrong. And only a couple of chapters into the journey with Ellie I felt like I'm open to that game. If there wasn;t another person playing it for me, I could've just droped it.
  
  Yep, that's the exact part I'm talking about. My daughter & only child was right at the same age & it hit pretty close to home. Couldn't take it.

Behind the Bastards lobotomy episode
- I guess it's that one?: https://youtu.be/XGUggZgpr-8?si=4k4Z7h7gNVfIfMR_
  I don't want you to check it. Other persons can verify.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/XGUggZgpr-8?si=4k4Z7h7gNVfIfMR
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- Fucking this. Also the Dhamer episode (I can't even get myself to describe it). Heroes also had an episide in a similar vein.
  Anything involving brain surgury/mutilation (especially the old school way where the subject is consious for it) is completely beyond me.

Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice. Played it with headphones as many suggested. I had recently lost my uncle, who by the time he died, was in a pretty bad state mentally. Seeing and hearing things that weren't there. Everyone out to get him. Calling to say the cops were trying to break into his home. No one was there.
He was a good guy and incredibly funny. Introduced me to the greatness of Monty Python at a young age. He was getting some better help near the end, finally. In part because he finally was accepting help.
He was a Vietnam vet, and from what everyone told me came back changed like so many did. This, in part, led to drug use that spiraled him down. Much better handled than some as he always held a job and such.
But the game made me think of what he might have been experiencing, and it was overwhelming for me. I think I stopped a third of the way through. It is very well done, but I just couldn't deal with it.
- Senua is wonderful for people not affected by what she suffers from imo
- Glad you switched it off. I've read a lot of stories of people playing Senua and having a mental breakdown over associating her with themselves or relatives. Ultimately, not the best way to reconnect with your family. The worst way.
  I stopped playing it after fear of me myself having something akin to it. There are mental illnesses running in my family and I'm afraid I have some chances to play Senua IRL. 'Tis why I don't even try to get a gun license. It's safer that way.

It Takes Two.
There's a point where your characters brutally murder the only nice thing thing in the entire story while it's begging for its life (your characters are pieces of shit, but the gameplay is good, so you can kind of ignore it). It happens to be the characters' daughter's favorite stuffed elephant.
Then your characters dance gleefully in their daughter's tears and show no remorse at their daughter crying or any emotion other than woe is us, our brutal murder didn't work.
Seriously, one of the most horrific things my husband and I have ever played through in a game. It made us feel sick. We stopped playing after that. The best thing I can do for that little girl is for her shitty ass parents to never waje up so she becomes an orphan. That's honestly a better outcome for her than having to live with her shitty abusive parents another day. I only wish it had been earlier in the game so we could have gotten refunds.
I can't believe they market that game to play with your kids and put that scene in it.
- Funny, I stopped playing the game right after this scene but not really because of it. I just couldn't stand the main characters from the very beginning.
- I absolutely hate the story of this game. The parents are horrible ego-centric people who do not deserve to be happy. My wife and I played it and we almost quit at the very end because we were convinced they shouldn't end up back together. They don't actually fix any relationship problems besides being reminded why they fell in love and nostalgia.
  It drives me nuts how this game won GOTY when I hated it so much.
- The entire time I was doing the awkward sad chuckles asking my partner repeatedly if it was for real and no, no ,no while I dragged it around killing it. I judged the parents soooooo hard for it.

CW: Trump, uspol
Trump separating families at the border. Children being put in cages. Americans waving the fucking nazi flag.
It's one thing to read about genocide. Another thing is to see it with your own eyes, even on TV.
And if any of you fuckers tries to tell me that both "sides are the same" or that "democrats did the same" or something in that vein, they are obviously doing this in bad faith and they can go fuck themselves. 🖕🤬

Schindler's List towards the end where Schindler was regretful that he could've sold more stuff and got more money to save more people.
- The stones on the grave too.
  
  The little children setting the little rocks down broke me up
  
  Aaaand now I'm welling up on the train 😭

Black Swan. Too intense for me, although I'll probably try to finish it sometime.
- Another Darren Aranofsky's movie? Yeah, he's aiming at piercing you, whenever you want it or not. And that one isn't the worst of his.
- One of my favorite movies...that I will absolutely never watch again.

The Curse
It's Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone, and has to be the most embarrassing cringe inducing show ever made.
It's amazing, but a lot of episodes I've had to stop and do something else and finish it later.
I can't even imagine trying to binge it all at once. Fielder is just too good at that stuff
- I think Nathan Fielder is one of the funniest people on the planet right now. The Rehearsal is fucking unreal.
  
  the fact that you are never sure how much of it is a character and how much is him as a person, is just amazing
- My Second-hand Embarrassment / Vicarious Embarrassment / Fremdschämen is really bad. The Curse is like eating spoonfuls of delicious sand.
- Uhg. I watched an episode of The Curse when my wife found it. I am convinced that the curse is actually the entire show - they're cursing the audience.
- Sounds like a good test to one's faith.
- Not seen that one yet but from the outside it only exists so Fielder can briefly live out his Emma Stone wife fantasies, no? 😅
- My partner really likes the curse but I said we can't watch it together anymore because it makes me feel like shit

Big fish.
At the time, the dad death hit a little too close to home after a few drinks.
- Favorite movie ever, haven't watched since 2011 or so, my father died in 2012 and I just can't...
- Ditto. This one had me in tears. The father so reminded me of my late grandfather and his storytelling.
- Read the book! It was so good as well. Not entirely the same as the movie. The movie was more of the premise with book plus some exerpts, but still amazing in its own way. I really enjoy both. Really easy read because of how it is written, and so much fun as well.

Cyberpunk Edgerunners. The world is simply too brutal for our protagonists.
Grave of the Fireflies. It just hurts to watch this movie.
- Grave of the Fireflies is so good, but definitely not in the way that makes me want to watch it again!

The Walking Dead TV series- Great show, but it was legit giving me nightmares, and I couldn't handle the storyline once they killed Glenn off. I'm reading the comics now years later and it's much more enjoyable
The Handmaid's Tale TV series-- I think I got like 4 episodes in, and then they hung that one woman's wife in front of her and sewed her vagina shut and I just couldn't handle the graphics. I did read the book later on, though. My own imagination is just so tame compared to what they show on TV, I think
Revenge of the Sith - I was deployed to Iraq when I saw it, and was in a really bad headspace, and that scene where Anakin gets burned up and then you see them putting the Vader mask on him just really fucked me up at the time. Absolutely will never watch that one again.
- It's not just you, it's much safer to read disturbing content than watch it on TV, it has something to do with how your mind forms memories. I think while reading your mind will on some level make up pictures to go with it, but only has access to the libraries of what you can already imagine. So if you have nightmares about it later or whatever it can still be challenging, but it's hard to get as traumatised as you can by seeing images on TV/film or irl. My source for this is something my wife read while we were researching ways to help our little girl, who gets freaked out by certain things on TV very easily. It seems to hold true for her at least.
- I also stopped there. I may be misremembering because of trauma but when he said 'Maggie I'll find you' it destroyed me. In his last moments all he could think about was his wife, I felt that on a deep personal level.
  
  I also remember crying when Beth died. That scene where Daryl carries her out was just too much. And then I remember they had the actress on that show they always had right after called Talking Dead and she ended up crying because her character was dead and then like everyone on that stage was crying.
- ... once they killed Glenn off. I'm reading the comics now years later and it's much more enjoyable
  I have some bad news for you...
  
  Hahaha yeah I know I know but at least it's not a shock this time.

I often had to pause during episodes of Violet Evergarden. My wife always knew when I was watching it because I would be a complete mess every single episode. I finished the show but some episodes I could not take in one go.
- Ever watched A Silent Voice? Like Violet Evergarden it messed me up a bit.
- Dear brother. I am happy that you are alive. Thank you. Love, Luculia.
- Dear Ann.
  (just writing that is heartwrenching tbh)

I don’t know if this counts, but I own multiple copies of Spiritfarer and haven’t played it yet, because my mother suddenly passed away shortly before I learned about the game, and just watching the trailer still breaks me up a bit.
edit: sigh correction, just thinking about the trailer breaks me up a bit
- It's... heart-wrenching.
  I haven't played it in over a year and just can't bring myself to fully finish it. I think I was right there, but I just.. can't.
  Just thinking about it makes me misty.
  I hope you're in a better place emotionally now. But maybe continue to put off playing, unless you feel you're ready to stare some potentially difficult things directly in the face.
  
  Thank you for the kind words. I could tell from the trailer and reviews that it’s a beautiful, glorious labor of love that I definitely need to play… someday. I’m not there yet, but I will have a generous supply of tissues available when it happens.
- Yup, Spiritfarer is my answer too. I played up through the first person to pass on and then couldn't keep going.
- Welcome to the no mom club. It sucks. It gets easier, but not for two years….
- It counts. And I hope you are in a better place now.

Silent Hill 2.
I was playing it at night at a campground that was terrifying by itself at night. My roommate had gone to sleep and I was getting more and more scared as the night went on. I couldn't find a save point and I was getting frantic just trying to save my game and go to sleep. I couldn't find one after an hour or so so I said fuck it and turned it off.
Cue a mouse eating something in our loft or some other small animal making it so I had to wake up my roommate telling him I need to talk for a minute to a real person before falling asleep. I didn't sleep much that night and didn't pick the game up for another 6 months.
Played it in the day time with people in the room. Fuck that game and it's still one of my favorites of all time to make me feel that way.
- And I thought I wouldn't see a SH2 comment here, silly me.
  How does it age for you? For me, it looks pretty nice, comfy, with all these PS1 gfx. Still haunting. But I guess it's not the same for everyone.

The Gantz manga. I took a break after an event that could be described as a terrorist attack.
Full Metal Alchemist, the episode with the girl and the dog.
- I remember that episode very well. Absolutely heartwrenching and disturbing
- FMA one is a real hearthchewer. I'm with you on that It came out of nowhere and it put a rail in my guts.
  Gantz is an edgy circus tho. Reading it after this kid's story, after all other things, I was somewhat prepared to this. I don't blame you. It's just when I was at this point, I felt like they'd do that or even worse.
  
  Not that FMAB wasn’t awful, but Made in Abyss was a million times worse than FMAB. I couldn’t start to process the horror I just witnessed in MiA compared to just raging in FMAB.

Jesus Camp
Made me so angry for those kids

Breaking Bad. I made it to the end of season 4 after trying once and stopping after just a couple episodes because the tension was so intense. I just couldn't push further than season 4, it was taking a toll on my nerves. Brilliant writing
- I think it's a show that (very much unlike Arrested Development) is worse when binged for the exact reason you stopped watching. It's too much. You really need a week between episodes once you get that far in to give yourself time to process and chill.
  Season 5 does not make it easier btw. If you go back and try again, go slowly.
  
  Makes sense...!
- I stopped for a while after Walter walked into the room and walked right out. If you get my gist... Also the penultimate part was a bit too numbing to get through.
  Edit: I was too cryptic but Jesse and his girlfriend were lying on the bed after shooting up heroin. What followed makes you mad at Walter as a despicable human.
  
  Tbh I don't get your gist 😅 which scene?

The graphic novel for The Walking Dead
SPOILER
When Glenn was murdered with the baseball bat - the picture and him saying Ma- Mag- Ma It was just too intense for me. I just closed the book and walked away for a long time.
When my husband saw that part in the show he just stopped watching. Also too intense for him
- I watched the last episode of the season (when we see someone eating a bat but don't know who) and was like "Ok, this thing has been shit for a while, that's enough." and only watched the next episode years later to know who was the victim and that confirmed my lack of interest for whatever came after.
  
  To add, that same season they already killed Glenn.
  He dies, but the show doesn't really address it. The characters do, but the show at this point was SUPER clear when a character died. Extra slow motion, special music, the works. Then they spend like 6 episodes with him dead, but you really just don't believe it. Then they reveal how he survived and it's just ridiculous, it's basically "the zombies just sorta give up for some reason". (Or is it like a dozen headshots, I forget at this point).
  Anyway, ALL that happens, then the season ends on a big cliffhanger. Unfortunately the tension is all wrong. The show was moving at a glacial pace where basically if you watched the season opener, the mid-season finale (see, above) and the finale, you'd be mostly caught up on the story. And so this finale robbed us of that too.
  Also the Internet was full of spoilers saying it was Glenn (from the comics) such that all excitement was lost between seasons.

Recently, For All Mankind, Season 1, the episode where the kid gets hit by a car and is in the hospital with a brain bleed. My son was in the hospital with a brain bleed right after his birthday and spent months in the hospital recovering. This episode hit real close to home.
I had to take a break half way through the episode and didn't finish it until 2 weeks later.
- This, indeed, strikes too close to home. Hope he's alright now. Can't even imagine what I could do in the same situation, and being reminded of it with a casual media, gosh.

The documentary Dominion that is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.
I had to stop about 16 minutes in. I did come back and finish it the next day.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  Dominion
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- This was absolutely heartbreaking. I think I made it about 20 or 30 min in before I broke down and couldn't continue. I've never attempted to go back and finish it. I just can't.

Mr. Robot. I think I got a few seasons in and realised that watching it was negatively impacting my mental health. It's just too depressing in parts, amazing show though. Its on hold for me to rewatch when I've got the emotional capacity for it.
- Believe me, you won't feel this way by the end. Best show in the universe. The dark aspects are necessary for the story, but the payout is amazing. I constantly want to rewatch it.
- Finished it this morning, it's quite the rollercoaster and it gets even darker in the last season before getting lighter... My girlfriend needed a couple of breaks to get through it so don't feel bad, it's not for everyone...
- I've already watched it, but my husband and I are going through it again because he hasn't seen it. We binge watch most shows, but Mr. Robot is HEAVY and it gets heavier and weirder until the end.
  My advice while watching it is to detach from the characters. Accept that anyone can die at any moment, often horribly, but know that the ending is bitter-sweet and that the show is absolutely worth the watch

I don’t know about emotionally overwhelming but we stopped watching the walking dead when they introduced Neegan because the shit he did was so fucking over the top brutal. I didn’t want to have that shit in my head

The Handmaid's Tale (TV Show), hands down.
The first season was emotional but I've gotten through it multiple times as I've tried re-watching to get through season 2. I got a little farther the last time I tried, but man, it's so visceral and constantly beating down the protagonist and everyone around her. That's the point and it's great, it's just so depression-inducing when there's just no uplifting points. IT does not let up in beating you down with the horribleness. I just can't keep going when it goes on for so long.
- This is exactly the one I was thinking. I tried watching it with my wife, and we both noped out of that one
- Watching it makes seeing what's happening in the US all the more terrifying when you realize a significant group of people want the world to be like that and are actively trying to make it so.

Just around the time COVID hit I had started reading The Road. Man is it a bleak book, which isn't something I normally have a problem with, but it hit way too close to home at a time when grocery store shelves were looking pretty picked-over and people were getting into fights over toilet paper.
I put it down and haven't gotten around to picking it back up yet.
Possibly the worst part is that I've been in a bit of a reading slump for the last few years, and I was just really starting to work my way out of it and had read a few books but that kind of hit my reset button and I haven't been able to really get restarted again.
I do intend to go back and restart it at some point though, I really enjoyed it, just really unfortunate timing.
- Read the book when I was childless. Sat down to watch the film after I had children. Lasted about 5 minutes. Had to turn it off and do something else.
- I physically recoiled at the idea of reading that book during the pandemic. I remember how I felt reading it, and if that had been on top of my pandemic depression... not sure I would've made it.
  Good book, tho.
  
  Yeah, the handful of chapters I read were amazing, McCarthy's writing style really sells the post-apocalyptic vibe, so very blunt and to-the-point, almost like it's the writer saying "we're all fucked and I'm not going to sugar-coat it because there's no point anyway"
  I didn't even have a bad case of pandemic depression, I've been lucky and these last few years have actually been really good to me, the pandemic and everything since have probably been the best years of my life, but I don't live in a bubble and The Road was not the right vibe to go with all of the bullshit in the world.

Show: Love, Death and Robots. It's fantastic but some of the episodes just hit too hard. I'll eventually get back to it, I just need some time
Game: Cyberpunk. I was looking something up and found out what happens to Evelyn. I kinda look like her a bit, and have also dealt with (much milder) issues in the same category. Too brutal
Movie: I actually watched it all the way, but the first time I watched American Beauty is just fucked me up for like, a week

For me it was Nier: Automata after the Pascal's rage. I just dropped my controller and cried for an hour. Their hatred, their loss... I couldn't even find a space to place it. To place myself. Anywhere. Anyhow. I felt defective.
- Nier automata never clicked with me and I feel kinda sad for it. It's my most hated good game
  
  It's OK. Yoko Taro is an outlier and a niche in himself. I, for example, can't even enjoy Souls games besides Bloodborne, and I feel a little sad about it. But what games are to your taste?
- I played that game obsessively over two days and got through ending E, and it absolutely destroyed me. I was depressed for weeks.
  
  If you still have some heartbeat in you, remaster of the OG Nier is a thing to try. It would hurt you, even more than Automata, but in the end, with an added ending, you'd feel a relief like nothing else. That I can promise.
  See if you'd be open to such a journey. Feel free to ping me back to discudss it if you would.

German movie 'Der goldene Handschuh' which tells the true story of 70's serial killer Fritz Honka. When a friend proposed to watch it, I seriously thought it to be a sports movie (the german 'Handschuh' translates to glove and my association instantly was a goal keeper's glove...). Well, I was wrong. The dense and depressing atmosphere of Honka's childhood and life, together with the derogatory, very hard and profane language and of course depiction of sexuality and violence towards women was simply too much for me. It sucked away all positivity at that moment. I finished it later and the director hit me once more, because in the end credits real pictures of the true locations where shown, proving the film's sets where simply identical. That ripped away the last imagination that what I've just seen was just a very dark fantasy and too bad to be real. Brilliant movie and actors (the main actor in his role is simply not recognizable any more from his real life appearance, just like Charlize Theron in 'Monster'), but too hard to for me to take.
- I haven’t seen Der Goldene Handschuh yet but your description reminds me a bit of Der Freie Wille from 2006. Also very hard to watch but brilliantly acted by Jürgen Vogel. Content warning: It’s about rape.

Doom 3. I can play it for maybe an hour and a half at a time. I love the game, but it grinds me down.
- I feel you - that game is an exhausting sensory overload experience.
  
  What kinda awesome about it though is that it still looks good! Artwork > resolution
- Is that for it's horror aspect?

Scott's Tots.
- THIS.
- I don't agree. It's became a meme now, but I think there are more cringey episodes than Scott's Tots.

La La Land. I had just been unexpectedly dumped by my anchor partner a few days earlier. Crashed at another partners place and did a bunch of mushrooms, they put the movie on without thinking just trying to fill the time to keep me distracted. The movie about two people having a very sweet relationship then breaking up and not getting back together again was maybe a poor choice lol. We had to stop it part way through so I could ground myself but after a while I did end up pulling it together enough to finish the movie (with some crying breaks here and there). 10/10, would mushroom and watch again. Helped me process tbh, after I knew what I was getting into, very emotionally draining on me though.
- Never tried shrooms yet, but had a similar experience with Amelie. Just after the break up I held myself okay, like a functional adult, but when there was a scene where Amelie felt like she's imagining things and he'd never come for her, I teared the hell out of me, nearly vomited my guts out from the sudden strike of sadness. Doubt I'd recomend it in an altered state of mind tho - the movie is already wicked. Yet, it's very, very sweet. If you'd come around it, feel free to write me back about how it felt, or maybe do a post here on the fediverse.

I didn’t stop it, because I was in a theater, but when Les Mis the movie came out I was at my peak with it as a special interest, so I was very in tune with the film. When Anne Hathaway sang I Dreamed A Dream it was so raw and devastating that I sobbed straight through the next two scenes. This was in a packed theater mind you, and I was sitting next to strangers.
I left the theater and realized I’d had an experience and if I ever watched the movie again it wouldn’t be the same and would diminish the moment I’d just had. And despite my ex-wife trying to get me to watch it again with her I’ve not watched it and never will. That memory is precious and I have gone bit overboard with it 😅

12 Years a Slave, I stopped when they were breaking him. Watching someone go from living their life to suddenly being dehumanized was too awful and terrifying. I was not in the mood to see that.

Voces inocentes. I had family killed in familiar places portrayed in this movie.
- Just read the plot of that movie. Don't feel like any words I can produce would make you feel better about it. It's just... I hope you are now in a better place and have something to rewrite these memories over.

Omori opens with an intense depiction of self-cutting and I noped out right there.
It gets much darker, I'm told. Glad it made the point early; I would not have enjoyed it.

Watched Our Planet, season 2 episode 2, and just started weeping uncontrollably when I saw the baby Albatross dying from being fed plastics and other toxic waste. I had to tap out.
- Spoiler, it survives.
  
  Oh, thank goodness. I may now have to go back and revisit in that case.

12 Years A Slave.
I was so overwhelmed with revulsion about what was happenning to the main character that I couldn't watch any more of it.
- ::: He gets free in the end if I remember correctly. :::

Air bud.
I had a golden retriever growing up, and he was the best friend I could have asked for. Seeing the dog in peril (I don't really remember the movie now) was too much, and I lost it.
- Old yeller was a big nope from me for similar reasons
  
  Yeah - that was a hard watch...

Sons of Anarchy. The show portrays so many people living in ever-increasing states of desperation. One episode ends with a character hanging himself and I almost quit right then and there even though there were multiple seasons left. I had never seen so much depression and crushing desperation portrayed like that. I took a break from it after that episode.
I did finish the show and it was indeed horribly depressing, but incredibly well-done and well-written.

Irreversible. A French film (alarm bells already) that disturbs me even to this day.
Makes you grateful for your loved ones and how fragile life can be, how one unlucky encounter can flip everything on its head and you may have no influence over any of it.
Difficult viewing for sure and the message shouldn't be to live in fear but to enjoy every good moment you get.

Hachi: a Dog Tale

I am very late to this, but the movie The Road written by Cormac McCarthy. I had watched this movie several times and what changed you ask? I have a little boy now. Can’t watch it. Just can’t

Walking dead (after rick got kidnapped?)
it was just so depressing and everything went to shit all the time
Fear the walking dead
Same, too depressing and cruel at times
Revenge
At times its ok but you never know when the next depiction of cruelty and emotional abuse hits
The A word
Can only watch it in small doses since the depiction of parents failing is hard if you have abuse history
The last one I still watch but not as the last thing before bed, otherwise I will dream horrible things.
- How deep you got into TWD? My unsocial ass liked the first couple of episodes, this cop riding on a horse like in Hot Fuzz, but with all that interpersonal drama I got sick of it. It felt so weird these people are the last men on Earth and they still have something to fight each other over.
  Jericho felt better in that aspect. Some suspect it was closed because it was too good and educative. I don't know if it's true, but it's 90's cinema slow, so you can become bored really quick.
  
  The show is about interpersonal drama more than it is about zombies and that's not me being reductive. The creator himself has said as much. It's a drama set in a post apocalyptic zombie world, not a zombie drama set in a post apocalyptic world.
  
  As I mentioned. I stopped pretty soon after rick got kidnapped, his son had died, etc
  And yes, the sheer infinite capacity for humans to be cruel to each other, even after an apocalypse just made me feel bad.
  Resident evil was nice, Oblivion I liked, Book of eli, even i am legend. But twd is just too cynic for me.

I didn't see anyone else mention it, but the scene in King Kong where one of the guys is eaten alive by four or five giant worms, each one starting from a different limb (the last one swallowing his fucking head).
Doesn't matter that they were setting him up for you to root for him to die, it's still way too much for me.
- Oh yeah. Creators did a great job at making that as dirty and greesy as possible for whatever reason. I don't understand why, but there was much effort to drop that bomb onto the viewer out of nowhere.

Old yeller.

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Walking dead (after rick got kidnapped?)

Fear the walking dead

Revenge

The A word