Does fiction make you cry?

[Unknownlight]

I cried to a TV show once, a long time ago. It was the X-Files episode "Closure", when Mulder finally found his sister after ~25 years (in the story) and 7 years (in real time).




It caught me off guard. I'd never cried to a piece of media before. Sure, I get invested and feel strong emotions from things I watch or read all the time, but not in a way that elicits a physical reaction out of me. Before this point, I wasn't even entirely sure if most people were being serious about "crying" to a movie. After all, most people wildly exaggerate when they describe their own emotions. "Rolling on the floor laughing" is obviously not supposed to be literal.

But this event opened my eyes! Bawling from a TV show or movie is a thing that really happens! And it felt good! Now that I knew what it was like, I had been looking forward to a long future of getting deeply invested into media and feeling the cathartic release of emotions when the tension is high and the music swells and everything comes together...!

And then it never happened again. That episode is still my one and only time. I'm so disappointed.

So, how about you, Era?

 

[Chivalry]

Cry rivers? Rarely. Shed a tear? All the damn time.

 

[Bedameister]

Yes, quite often actually.

 

[Fat4all]

lots of shit makes me cry

i like a good cry

just last night i watched Coco again and the end always has me bawling

 

[RocketKiss]

Prestige tv

 

[Deleted member 4260]

Transformers 2 made me cry

Spoiler

because it was so horrible.

 

[Gustaf]

i can make mexicans cry

 

[Fat4all]

i call the youtube channel "The Dodo" the drunk-crying channel

 

[Aurica]

It's weird. Never when I was growing up, but I started tearing up from media in general a ton in my mid 20s. Rarely am I all-out crying, but even that has happened a couple times now. I was really surprised by this change. I think the most recent thing that had me cry was a poem by Daniel Poppick a couple weeks ago. I couldn't even figure out why I was crying. I don't think a game has made me cry or tear up yet, but movies and books have done it a number of times now.

 

[KillerMan91]

I cry more to fiction than to real life stuff. For some reason even if some depressing or sad stuff happens to me in real life I don't feel like crying even though I feel like shit. Some sad or touching stuff in tv/games/movies? I cry very often.

 

[Jive Turkey]

If movies like Coco or Iron Giant don't get you to shed a tear or two, you aren't human.

 

[Lost Lemurian]

Yes, frequently.

The other day, I rewatched the episode of Beast Wars where Dinobot dies and it destroyed me.

 

[Sanjuro]

 

[Mekanos]

It's weird. Never when I was growing up, but I started tearing up from media in general a ton in my mid 20s. Rarely am I all-out crying, but even that has happened a couple times now. I was really surprised by this change. I think the most recent thing that had me cry was a poem by Daniel Poppick a couple weeks ago. I couldn't even figure out why I was crying. I don't think a game has made me cry or tear up yet, but movies and books have done it a number of times now.

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I'm in a similar boat. I think when you're young the lack of emotional maturity makes it harder to fully understand the implications of scenes when characters die, etc.

 

[Fat4all]

i cried at the end of one of the side-quests in Ghost of Tsushima

 

[B.K.]

No. I've never cried over any piece of fiction. No games, books, or movies. Nothing.

 

[Ashdroid]

There's a lot of books that made me cry. Most Pixar movies do, too.

 

[Instro]

Spiderman is making a lot of people cry today.

 

[DixieDean82]

Yes. I frequently found myself in tears while watching the last season of Game Of Thrones.

 

[Aurica]

I'm in a similar boat. I think when you're young the lack of emotional maturity makes it harder to fully understand the implications of scenes when characters die, etc.

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They made me sad before, but tears just didn't come out. I've always been extremely affected by others' facial expressions and words, so it's not uncommon that someone in real life feeling sad or crying makes me cry, too. If you asked me a few years ago if I thought I'd become more sensitive or less sensitive over time, I wouldn't have seen this coming, though.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

In short, yes all the damn time.

 

[Rangerx]

I can tear up from time to the for sure. It has to feel real though and not schmaltzy. Something like Mike Leigh's Another Year or Grave of the Fireflies.

 

[Almagest]

If the author knows how to pull the right strings, sure. Even predictable scenes can be emotional when done right and I usually react as expected.

 

[Fiction]

Sorry everyone I'll try to be nicer.

 

[Manu]

It's weird. Never when I was growing up, but I started tearing up from media in general a ton in my mid 20s. Rarely am I all-out crying, but even that has happened a couple times now. I was really surprised by this change.

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This is me.

It started with Toy Story 3's ending and it never stopped.

 

[ExtremelyBitter]

While human drama usually gets me to tear up a little at most, and usually then only in really specific circumstances and generally in something I've been watching/reading/whatever for a while. It's usually for big things like character sacrifices, but on rare occasions a 'good' moment can hit me just right and my eyes well up a bit.

On the less rational side, bad things happening to dogs can make me ugly cry beyond all reason, even as I know it's a completely disproportionate response. Old Yeller hit me so hard when I was a kid it freaked my parents out, and I got blindsided by Knife of Never Letting Go and now can never reread that book. I know it's not rational, but it turns out that the idea of something bad happening to an animal that is sentient enough to recognize the thing is bad but probably not capable of understanding and contextualizing why just completely wrecks me, and I've always really liked the company of dogs. It's basically to the point that if I know or suspect something bad is going to happen to a dog I just will avoid that piece of media.

 

[Pau]

What a coincidence, I've been reading a light novel series whose last books finally got compiled and translated into English and released a few days ago. I'm almost done, and I've basically been crying every 50 pages or so.

The series is called The Beast Player, and the first half had an anime adaptation called Kemon no Souja Erin back in 2009. Probably for the best that they didn't adapt the second half. (I"m kidding, someone please bring it back so I can cry more.)

 

[Jeffolation]

Found myself crying more as I got older. And fictional stuff for whatever reason hits harder.

 

[Soapbox Killer]

God's trying to tell you something!



Every Single Time

 

[Fulminator]

It definitely has, sure

 

[pizzaparty]

I cry every time I watch Lilo and Stitch.

 

[StormBrute]

Yeah, definitely! What I love about fiction is its ability to make people experience emotions through empathy and vicarious experiences...

It's easiest to remember instances for movies and television... I just got teary-eyed watching the "Why don't he want me, man" scene from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air today. I got teary-eyed watching Okja. I bawled watching Schindler's List and Grave of the Fireflies, and cried a lot for Toy Story 3 and the new A Star is Born as well. Coco got me surprisingly hard as well in the end, which I was shocked by since I didn't really love the movie, but it came together.

For books, I think I cried reading All the Light we Cannot See, but I can't remember for certain. Definitely made me sad though. There's been some good fanfic that I've read that's made me tear up though.

For games, the end of Final Fantasy X the first time I played it made me cry, and one specific cutscene moment during the opening/prologue hours of Horizon: Zero Dawn made me tear up (though outside of that moment, the game and its writing did nothing for me). The ending of Life is Strange also got me super hard, especially with how all the themes came together in that moment.

Even some music! The combination of Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) + It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus) on Arcade Fire's Reflektor has gotten me teary-eyed before, particularly on the playlist I edited where that's the finale of the album.

I honestly can't tell if it's happening more or less as I'm getting older, so I feel like I've always been open to being affected.

 

[sirap]

All the time.

 

[Kurtikeya]

I've never not cried watching Spirited Away or The Shape of Water.

 

[Deleted member 46958]

Last piece of fiction to really stir up my emotions was Mr. Robot S4's finale.

 

[jman1954goat]

Prestige tv

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I feel attacked !!!

 

[Inquisitive_Ghost]

Yeeeeeep. Was worse when I was younger, but I can still get absolutely wrecked by stories.

Sorry everyone I'll try to be nicer.

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🤣

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

Documentaries hit me more often than fiction. But not the sad stories, the uplifting moments.

 

[Z-Beat]

When she yells at me, yeah

Fiction

 

[Fiction]

When she yells at me, yeah

Fiction

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:(

 

[Westbahnhof]

I can cry at everything, baby.
Depends how mich emotion I got inside already.
My grandmother died some time ago, and for a while, any heartfelt scene, especially with strong women, would make me tear up.

I think it's my whole family... We watched Hachiko and not only me, but my mom, dad and sister were crying, haha

Edit: there's even some scrooge mcduck comics that make me all teary

 

[sredgrin]

Not full on tears streaming down my face crying, but I can well up

 

[Bio Booster Armoire]

I'll get emotional, but very rarely do the waterworks turn on. One exception is The Tiger; that film damn near gave me a nervous breakdown.

 

[Zomba13]

Yup.

 

[MrCibb]

Yeah, sure. Only the really sad stuff gets any kind of tears down my face, that's pretty rare, but I have a really bad habit of welling up at moments of great victory. I just can't help it.

 

[Deleted member 21339]

I cry more from fiction than real life

 

[dead souls]

All the time.

Hell, I've already cried at TV a couple of times this week.

 

[cnorwood]

I could never get over the fact that its not real, this is also why scary movies never scared me.

 

[Nepenthe]

Good storytelling- whether fictional or not- makes me cry like a baby.

 

[Fat4all]

:(

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the tables have turned