Have you ever had to drop a piece of fiction because it was too good?

I'm curious about how common this is, and how other people experience it. Please vote, and if you feel like sharing, tell us which fiction it was for you and why.

For me it's Sunstone by Shiniez. The relationship in that comic is just so beautiful to me, that it kept making me melancholy as all hell. It got to the point that I was dreading updates, because while I would enjoy reading them, mopiness would almost invariably dominate my thoughts for the rest of the day.

 

Cant say i've had that happen to me...
But i do take breaks of certain fics.

 

Do you take a break because the fic had a dip in quality, or because it was too good quality and it was too intense?

 

Both? Its like if its too much of it, or if i'm not really into that genre at the moment.

 

There was a fanfic I once read where Snape got sent back in time to when he was a kid. Basically a fix-fic but with some very well written OCs, including one Scottish or Irish (I don't quite remember and actually have no experience with either in RL so I couldn't identify even if I read it again.) witch who had a strong accent who was absolutley adorable.

Then she died.

Was the first time I cried over a piece of fiction since reading the "Rolling Stones" by Robert A. Heinlein.

 

Usually not in the middle of a first reading/playthrough. But if it means going back to something out of nostalgia, or branching paths in replayability, and then realizing that I don't have time for it, I'd drop it for the time being. Sometimes by going to another work that catches my eye, if it can give me a quick thrill.

Saving the best moments for when I'm feeling down, or when I have time to savor it. If it's something that could use support, like a work in progress, then maybe I'd put a bit of time to support it over a completed work that you could come back to later.

 

I guess I'm a little weird here, because I do not find "too good" to be an appropriate term for stories that make me too sad to continue.
Admittedly, I don't think it's common for me to have stories make me too sad to continue from being overly intense, as opposed to overly dark (such as many Worm fics, or detective-themed TV series).

On the other hand, I had problems with re-reads and catch-ups of some NSFW stories (most notably Eternal Threnody) because the porn was so good that my attempts at reading them kept getting interrupted by fapping, which in turn required a break for the refractory period, and after a few days of such on-and-off reading I often got distracted from actually finishing the story.

 

Yeah, there have been a couple of times where I'm really enjoying a work in terms of style and writing quality but I can tell I'm going to get... sort of weary or despairing about how the story actually goes.
A recent example is Petals of Titanium, which was super awesome but I had to gently drop because I kept feeling extremely tense about where it was going to go. This fairly often ends up happening with old quests where I start getting anxious about old votes.

 

Fate/stay night, Katawa Shoujo, Bastion, and Transistor.

I managed to finish them the first time (Fate, Lilly with lying in the last choice, and Reset for routes respectively in the first three. I don't remember if Transistor had different routes but I don't think so) but I could never get myself to go that far on a second run in any of them.

For FSN and KS, it's because I fell in love with the routes' characters (Saber and Lilly respectively) and I couldn't play them again because I felt the stories were complete.

Saber and Shirou reunite after eternity in Avalon, and Hisao and Lilly broke up with her eventually leaving back to UK, and that's how it would always be in my mind. Those are the stories of those characters, and I couldn't bear the heartache of seeing it go any different. I watched the "True" Lilly ending on YouTube once, but it just felt fake.

Bastion, because I think I would choose the reset option.

Transistor, because I couldn't bear repeating the ending. It would hurt too much.

 

if somthing is mad good and updates REALLY GOD DAMN SLOW, I will drop it until it either dies or has a decent buildup of stuff.

If it's good but unfinished, I'll read to the end and then be like "aw shucks no ending oh well" but if I fucking hate waiting months on an update.

 

Maybe? I’m not sure if this counts, but up until March I was going through a heavy horror phase in my podcast-listening habits. I haven’t been able to pick most of them up in months because, somehow, being stuck in a global pandemic has made me reluctant to artificially increase my own anxiety.

 

Going through Hollow Knight for more than three times.

The clearer in me said yes. The weak me says no since no matter what you choose the little knight will always have to bear the heaviest burden at the end of it all.

 

I'll drop a fic that's too good if it abruptly goes on a long hiatus because I would have forgotten why I was following it in the first place and don't feel like re-reading a million words.

Or I suddenly develop a sense of taste and realize the fic I once liked is actually a cringy piece of shit.

Or I'll drop it if it has a sudden Jumping the Shark moment like killing the popular ship.

Or they do something really moronic like let the bad guys get away because the author suddenly decided killing is wrong.

 

i think at some point it has happened to everyone !

 

There are plenty of stories I want to read but do not have the time to.