Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

[steelgraya]

There's communicating like adults and a supportive environment and then there's having next to 0 issues and problems, everyone is happy with everything and there's nothing that can't be solved by talking out your feelings or waiting it out.
That's just a fantasy for sterile, sanitized people who ironically can't talk like adults or handle any problems because they feel that every little comment made is an attack towards them and that life should never ever ever inconvenience them beyond a simple argument (and that's a big deal because how dare others have opinions that doesn't match my own, they should agree with me and decisions 100% of the time). The type of person who have never faced a real problem or an actually unsupportive environment, but they've convinced themselves that their parents getting upset that they quit their job/dropped out of collage is 'abuse' and 'emotional damage'.

‎I think it’s genuinely funny how some people see a wholesome, emotionally supportive environment and immediately conclude it must be 'fake,' 'sterile,' or only relatable to privileged white Americans. Apparently, if a story doesn’t revolve around constant dysfunction, cruelty, or unresolved trauma, then it’s suddenly unrealistic. Again that says more about your worldview than it does about the game.
‎
‎Our Life was never trying to be a gritty social commentary on suffering. It’s a comfort-focused visual novel built around emotional openness, healthy communication, and personal choice. The fact that the characters usually solve problems by talking things through isn’t bad writing, it’s literally the point. Not every story needs screaming matches, toxic relationships, or emotional repression to feel real. Some people actually enjoy stories where characters are kind to each other without needing a tragedy every five minutes to justify it.
‎
‎And the irony here is hard to ignore. You’re criticizing the game’s fans for supposedly being oversensitive and unable to handle disagreement while writing an entire rant because fictional characters were too emotionally available for your liking. You keep calling the game sanitized but what you really seem to mean is that the characters don’t behave with the level of bitterness or dysfunction you personally associate with realism.
‎
‎At the end of the day, disliking the game is completely fine. Not every story resonates with everyone. But reducing it to 'white liberal fantasy' because it portrays supportive relationships is just an unnecessarily cynical reading of a game whose entire purpose is comfort and emotional sincerity. Some people don’t need misery to see humanity in a story

But a hit dog will always holler.

Says more about you than anything else.

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

‎I think it’s genuinely funny how some people see a wholesome, emotionally supportive environment and immediately conclude it must be 'fake,' 'sterile,' or only relatable to privileged white Americans. Apparently, if a story doesn’t revolve around constant dysfunction, cruelty, or unresolved trauma, then it’s suddenly unrealistic. Again that says more about your worldview than it does about the game.
‎
‎Our Life was never trying to be a gritty social commentary on suffering. It’s a comfort-focused visual novel built around emotional openness, healthy communication, and personal choice. The fact that the characters usually solve problems by talking things through isn’t bad writing, it’s literally the point. Not every story needs screaming matches, toxic relationships, or emotional repression to feel real. Some people actually enjoy stories where characters are kind to each other without needing a tragedy every five minutes to justify it.
‎
‎

I never said Our Life was a social commentary on misery, nor did I say that it needed screaming matches and toxic relationships. I said and I will quote my own self here

There's communicating like adults and a supportive environment and then there's having next to 0 issues and problems, everyone is happy with everything and there's nothing that can't be solved by talking out your feelings or waiting it out.

Because this is not true. Like it or not, life is 90% having issues and learning how to navigate it. A world where you don't ever face problems with others does not exist. From a writing point of view, it's a faux pas, since conflict is needed to drive a story along. It's not a depiction of an actual supportive environment, it's the sanitized and sterile idea of one. Supportive doesn't mean always agreeable. It means having people there who would always support your wellbeing even if it means being harsh and a little mean sometimes. Sometimes it isn't "I'm here if you need me", it's "WTF is wrong with you, and I'm not engaging in this crap until you get your **** together."

And the irony here is hard to ignore. You’re criticizing the game’s fans for supposedly being oversensitive and unable to handle disagreement while writing an entire rant because fictional characters were too emotionally available for your liking. You keep calling the game sanitized but what you really seem to mean is that the characters don’t behave with the level of bitterness or dysfunction you personally associate with realism.

Again. There's emotionally available and then there's always agreeing with everything. Our Life characters are the latter and I never said anything about them needing to behave with bitterness and dysfunction. I just said them agreeing with everything is a fantasy for people like you who think someone disagreeing with you is 'bitterness' and 'being dysfunctional'. Two different things.

At the end of the day, disliking the game is completely fine. Not every story resonates with everyone. But reducing it to 'white liberal fantasy' because it portrays supportive relationships is just an unnecessarily cynical reading of a game whose entire purpose is comfort and emotional sincerity. Some people don’t need misery to see humanity in a story

I've been on Tumblr for over a decade. I call it a white liberal fantasy because it is one. In fact, I originally said that it had 'more representation than story, the way Tumblr likes it.' My sanitized white liberal American fantasy comment came from another user saying that it's not all Tumblrinas that behave like this. Getting this pressed over that comment just means you're exactly the type of person I'm talking about when I mentioned that stereotype.

That's just a fantasy for sterile, sanitized people who ironically can't talk like adults or handle any problems because they feel that every little comment made is an attack towards them and that life should never ever ever inconvenience them beyond a simple argument (and that's a big deal because how dare others have opinions that doesn't match my own, they should agree with me and decisions 100% of the time). The type of person who have never faced a real problem or an actually unsupportive environment, but they've convinced themselves that their parents getting upset that they quit their job/dropped out of collage is 'abuse' and 'emotional damage'.

Someone who can't scroll away from a silly comment in a pirate forum and instead gets mad like the comment was personally talking about them and must reply to insult them and imply that they're just a bitter and angry person who can't handle a game where everyone isn't bitter and angry and 'communicate like adults'. Making up **** I didn't even say because you felt called out by a comment which to your own words, didn't even fit your description.

Says more about you than anything else.

Was this a clapback? It fell flatter than Our Life's writing.

Anyway, let's agree to disagree on Our Life having good writing. Because this VN is not worth arguing about.

 

[seneya]

I can't believe I'm defending Our Life of all things, I find it boring af. But...
People unwind by different means. Some read dark ****, as I do; some like cozy stories. Not liking a story/genre as fine, but claiming everyone who enjoys OL is "sterile and sanitized" is needlessly reductive. Otherwise we can claim that, say, everyone who enjoys power fantasy is an insecure jerkass harboring sadistic urges to trample and humiliate everyone who disagrees with them. Doesn't sound quite right, yes?
One type of fantasy is not better than another, they're just different. People read cozy stories to get away from irl **** for a while, that's all. Someone imagines themselves all-powerful & solving problems with a single flick of wrist, someone imagines a drama-free reality where everything can be talked out. Btw, talking things out IS the adult thing to do irl.

 

[LtheStoryteller]

Someone who can't scroll away from a silly comment in a pirate forum and instead gets mad like the comment was personally talking about them and must reply to insult them and imply that they're just a bitter and angry person who can't handle a game where everyone isn't bitter and angry and 'communicate like adults'. Making up **** I didn't even say because you felt called out by a comment which to your own words, didn't even fit your description.

Welcome to my world

 

[LtheStoryteller]

I can't believe I'm defending Our Life of all things, I find it boring af. But...
People unwind by different means. Some read dark ****, as I do; some like cozy stories. Not liking a story/genre as fine, but claiming everyone who enjoys OL is "sterile and sanitized" is needlessly reductive. Otherwise we can claim that, say, everyone who enjoys power fantasy is an insecure jerkass harboring sadistic urges to trample and humiliate everyone who disagrees with them. Doesn't sound quite right, yes?
One type of fantasy is not better than another, they're just different. People read cozy stories to get away from irl **** for a while, that's all. Someone imagines themselves all-powerful & solving problems with a single flick of wrist, someone imagines a drama-free reality where everything can be talked out.

And this is true, I must agree.
Buuuuut, also, yourstalkeroutside just commented about how they view the game. It's unrealistic and it's completely FINE to say that. Overly extra coddling, or whatever, and that's FINE.
Just saying that doesn't mean that they are personally attacking anyone, just pointing out what they noticed about the story, and why they think it's not good. You see that, say okay, that's how you see it, I think it's alright because I see it like that, and that's that. You agree to disagree, and that's IT. The problem is the one commentator above, just how the ones that like to be on my ***, with how they take personal offence at anything said. It gets even worse when they bring the need to have some moral superiority over everyone, but that's a whooole other topic that I won't go into here, since it would just be clogging the thread needlessly, more so than I've, or we've, already have

And here's the thing that actually undermines your whole point

The only thing that undermines my point is you trying to deduce what I use and how I use it, BUT! As I said to the Mis character, use the private messages to send me these, because as I mentioned before, I don't want to clog the thread, as was pointed out by someone, I forgot who

 

[LtheStoryteller]

GOAT **** honestly, and he released it. You can literally go here, and you can even find out about game release under that framework and how the money will be split(hint, he isn't CoG's stupid 75% Pre-tax cut)

Thanks for the info! I'll look into it

 

[seneya]

It's unrealistic and it's completely FINE to say that.

Yes, it's fine to say that. I was addressing the point where it wasn't just the game being called sterile and sanitized (which is fine), but the people who enjoy it - please do not move (or, rather, replace) the goalpost. It was a counterargument to that specific part.
Otherwise yes, agree to disagree, as everyone has different tastes in fiction.

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

Yes, it's fine to say that. I was addressing the point where it wasn't just the game being called sterile and sanitized (which is fine), but the people who enjoy it - please do not move (or, rather, replace) the goalpost. It was a counterargument to that specific part.
Otherwise yes, agree to disagree, as everyone has different tastes in fiction.

To which I will note the original context of the comment which was talking about Tumblr. Context matters here.

Basically this is what happened:

Me: Our Life is a mid game with more representation than story, the way Tumblr likes it.

Another user: I'm a Tumblr user and only a certain subset of Tumblr (White Americans) that likes it.

Me: Same, it's a sterile sanitized game for sterile sanitized people. A white liberal American fantasy.

Illiterate dumbass: Saying that it's a white liberal American fantasy is thermally online, I'm not white and American. How dare someone like a game where you live in a supportive environment.

Me: WTF no. (Explains exactly what I mean by it being a sterile, sanitized game and the exact type of person I was talking about)

Illiterate dumbass: (insert essay based on assumptions and things I didn't say)

Being attacked because someone thought I was talking about all it's fans is stupid. Being attacked because they clearly did not read the comment I was replying to and just made assumptions about me is even more dumb.

I never said that liking Our Life was bad or that people shouldn't enjoy it, I said that it was made to appeal to a very specific type of person. There's a massive difference.

 

[seneya]

I said that it was made to appeal to a very specific type of person

...and that was specifically the point I was addressing: that the type of person the game is appealing to does not necessary have to be a, quote, sterile and sanitized person. Regardless of it that person is on Tumblr or not.
To put it even simpler, I disagree that the game's target audience consists of sterile and sanitized people, and I outlined why I think so in my post.
I never accused you of saying that

liking Our Life was bad or that people shouldn't enjoy it

and I am not going to argue about what other users said, as my post has nothing to do with theirs.
f u Our Life you own me for this