What makes a "good" story to me?

Additionally a little talk about social media, fandoms, fictional stories and mental health

Some months ago my lack of self-care with internet negativity resulted in my depression and anxiety getting worse, as well as these obsessions I frequently have. Even though this is a small and banal problem, I was very impacted by it.

I honestly feel bothered by not being able to socialize online for light-hearted stuff like hobbies and the constant fear of being mocked and ridicularized. This sentiment of not fitting anywhere, I've looked up on internet and it is a common issue. Some says it is normal for people who are too introverted or socially isolated, some says it could be a trace of neurodivergence, which is something I needed to investigate with a professional it's been a while.

I will only talk about anime/manga/games here, because these are my focus nowadays and where I saw more online discussions. With books I tend to not participate in online discussions and several of them are classics or barely have discussions online about, also they are from my country and not popular in forums.

One of my recent struggles have been romances.... Every praised romance plot or subplot to me is incredible dull, boring, "clautrophobic" or even forced somehow. I believe it's because they follow so much the rules of what makes a good romance that they ended up looking artificial to me. The more natural a romance is trying to be, the more artificial it looks to me and it makes no sense, right? For some reason I find them so uninteresting and pointless. Something that makes me not care or feels devoid of life is much more severe than something deeply flawed but charming and full of life.

Not only romances, but perfect stories in general reminds me of circles. The sensation I get is like asking someone to throw forms and shapes at you and everyone just keep throwing circles, people love the shape of circles. I hate circles, especifically circles. If I ask for something different they give me another circle but just painted....or even worse an dashed circle, meaning it is just an dishonest circle, they just forced that shape on something that was supposed to have another shape. But oh, it was well rounded like a circle so its good. I really can't handle polished stories and the same structural formula over and over again. They lack spontaneity and it's boring, I think I kust like chaos, I'm kind of crazy?

I have no clue why I'm like this, the only explanation for my resistence to enjoy several stories is me growing up isolated from media discussions, especially on internet. Just in the recent 2 or 3 years is when I started to lurk or even try to actively participate in some places. But even with characters, plot points and others things I saw myself isolated in my preferences and this is one of the reason I quit social media, I couldn't even have fun with my hobbies in a community: I had nothing in common with people there. Although I may look proud or snob, this is actually somewhat a vent. I feel genuinely sad to struggle to so much to find people to talk about these stuff. Sometimes I think is a me problem, maybe I should learn to be more open-minded and befriend people with different views and opinions. I doubt every friends out there shares as much values and tastes as I'm expecting them to...

I've tried House in Fata Morgana and it is the embodiement of this issue. I didn't have fun with it at all, seemed like I was reading a perfect structure, but not a lived story. I'm on chapter 10 of Dungeon Meshi and I'm struggling to keep going because it feels too clean, something about that suffocates me. The Witch Hat Atelier made me uneasy and I didn't try to go further. Tried Fruits Basket manga and had to force myself to finish it. Two Persona games I played are very mixed to me. I don't think I like social links, at least not the ones I've tried. I tried the Opium (manhwa) and Bloom Into You. I found they were boring, especially Opium. Bloom Into You at least had some stuff that called my attention.

I also started to trust my intuition a bit more and be more picky with stories I read. Overconsumption of medias I would never be consuming just because so many told it was good also caused me burnout. Overall I'm trying to get rid of the rigid ways I saw people engage with media on internet, because I was unconsciously affected.

Since my school days, I've never heard of tropes, I wonder if this is something only learned on college or maybe a foreign thing? This thing about consuming more of a formula and for self-wishfullment confuses me. Why should I care about this beautiful scene if this seems contradictory to the whole narrative? Liking a X romance because of "A x B" trope confuses, what about the writing? The compatibility? The bond? Should I start to give high value to "chemistry"? Why are so many romances with "chemistry" lacking in soul and substance to me? Why care to praise the time spend together or the fact this is a "slow burn" (what are even these reductive terms?) if a basic bond between the characters was never ever well established?

Well I don't think a correct way to enjoy exists, much less I'm saying I do it better...Is just that I don't understand any of that and honestly I'm just trying to reclaim the way I engaged with media before this whole mess and move on with my life. Whatever I just have bad or questionable tastes I can't do much with that, this is who I'm. To me a boring story is worse than a bad story.

Anyway I got the impression that fandoms and overall internet is full of people struggling with life for different reasons and a lot of them are seeking validation and escapism. Neurodivergence like ADHD seems very common, and like others mental conditions/disorders I consider them "contagious" for lack of better wording. I don't think it was a good ideia for me to engage and meeting people overly attached to specific works, characters and romances. Parasocial relationships aren't healthy. Obsessions and "brainrot" being celebrated and normalized enabled my own obsessive personality and I started to "mimic" these people and well...I got worse.

Fandom culture got to me because everyone was doing that. While the ideas behind these fandoms are cool, in the hands of humans beings it turned into something I don't vibe with and I'm glad I quit it. Without considering others issues like echo chambers, "circle jerks", obsession with ranking everything, overload of opinions and lack of critical thinking. Big, medium or tiny....I think every fandom probably suffers from the massive problems social media does. My experience with the smallest ones were unpleasant, the ones I tried looked so narrow-minded with little variety of opinions, they seem mostly composed of a small group of friends who share the same opinions and tastes, and avoid conflict by never being honest. Trying to join them while having different opinions was too alienating.

I also had issues with subreddits for social anxiety or depression worsening my own mental conditions instead of improving them. It's like join a place with full of people like you, kind of feels comforting and validating, reinforces that struggle as your own identity and enables it even more, because it normalizes it. If people are having fun in these places and consider themselves under control, then there is nothing wrong. But to me....I just learned social media made me a worse person and I don't want to get worse, so I left it...

Things I enjoyed recently: