Other Examples of non-linear/Meta narratives

meta narratives r fun!

I think the one work I go think about when it comes to relying on meta-narrative stuff without going too into detail is Umineko no Naku Koro Ni/Umineko When they Cry, Probably one of my most favorite fictional works and a god-tier Visual Novel, rly highly recommend checking it out when you can (its on steam but change the sprites to the og cause the pc ones look, wack) and especially read it if you like mystery novels, which Umineko is essentially a meta love-letter towards

another meta narrative book i love is Lavinia by Ursula K Le Guin!! it's not the sprawling epics that hs or hol are, but it's a beautiful book about the nature of stories and being a character in one. Le Guin is also my favorite author of all time lol

transdimensional brain chip

demon by jason shiga i think? ruby quest maybe

Eidolon Disco/Ska is an actual play podcast that is essentially 'what if the homestuck epilogues were good'. gets very into the limits of that kind of collaborative storytelling/the medium in general, and the rpg theyre playing is just very fun on its own. its a little hard to reccommend because its like, 120+ hours, but if youre interested in that sort of thing it rules.

The Cube Escape series. it’s less meta, but more so non linear.

there’s so many game’s that contribute to the lore, and even the cube escape pack does not show the story in a linear fashion.

it’s an unsettling horror type feeling to it as well,

the best way i can describe it is, an escape room framed in the context of a dream

First off, House of leaves is a great example. instead of direct reader involvemenT, the reader is a character in the book, actively contributing. one of my favorite books. second, I’m not 100% sure but I believe Hussie has mentioned Donnie Darko as being intentionally similar to the timeline hornswogglery in the comic.

@steamisteaholic Cube escape is good! But the other rusty lake games (especially roots, the past within, and the white door) deal more with timeline concepts and Homestuck-style shenanigans.

Kazuo Ishiguro's books are often highly non-linear - "The Remains of the Day," "Never Let Me Go" and "The Unconsoled," for instance. He starts the story near the end, and intercuts multiple layers of flashbacks into a kind of maze of memories.

Hussie is definitely a Donnie Darko fan, that's where 'Fuckass' came from originally.

not large scale but kurt vonnegut’s novels usually have metanarratives, such as slaughterhouse five and breakfast of champions.

seconding umineko, yiik a postmodern rpg is also good and metanarrative-y, the novel fog (niebla in spanish) by miguel de unamuno is good and features meta shit, also the posthumous memoirs of brás cubas by machado de assis, gravity's rainbow by thomas pynchon, infinite jest by david foster wallace

Not necessarily non-linear, and pay no mind to my icon or handle when I say this, but Revolutionary Girl Utena is a meta narrative in the sense that it's portrayed as a stageplay within itself. This idea is toyed with through the shadow girls, through certain visual cues like the stage stab in the final episode, and the fairytale concept (princes, princesses, witches, white horses, etc. and what they represent) which is called back to in many instances throughout the show.

if your're looking for film/tv, anything by david lynch would probably be good for your taste

did you know "meta" in polish means finish line?
haha! Getting back on topic I'd recommend OFF. E

specially with the remake that's coming out in l

ike 4 days.

Seconding @utena and specifically adding on a recommendation for the movie specifically, which famously is both a retelling and kind of a timeloop sequel thing. I'd call particular attention to the movie's visuals getting way more, well, Ikuhara than the TV anime's, as an interesting touchstone for the "canon decay" concept that current HSBC is poking at.

There's a great video essay on ergodic literature/"books like House of Leaves," but that's more about being nonlinear than meta: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKX90LbnYd4

As for metanarratives specifically, there's Danganis taken out by sniper

While i never got around to playing it, I've heard good things about Myhouse.wad (Doom 2 mod), it's story is more so something you figure out from the environment (no narrator). But it's directly inspired by House of Leaves and it has multiple endings.

Mainly recommending it because you mentioned "user involvement" and you can't get much more involved than a video game. If you do play it, i recommend reading the original forum post and the google drive which features stuff that expands on the story and gives hints on what you're supposed to do in the mod.

Here's the link to it. https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/134292-myhousewad/

here to cosign @spicyyeti's Transdimensional Brain-Chip rec, along with literally all of Øyvind Thorsby's projects. TBC is my favorite but Hitmen for Destiny is also fantastic.

https://thorsbysprojects.thecomicseries.com/Mycomics/

backing Transdimensional Brain Chip and the goat Umineko. Also throwing in Nabokov's Pale Fire, which I've been really enjoying. (I am also a Slaughterhouse Five enjoyer, it's a pretty quick read).

Mulholland Drive is one of my favorite movies ever and if you want to get started on Lynch I would really recommend it both as what youre looking for here and just as an incredible film in itself. They're like actually lesbians.

@zolf I'am skeptical how "good" it can be if it starts from the premise of the epilogues being "bad." Like is it just "epilogues but everyone's happy and well-adjusted?"

i'll go up to bat for Alan Moore's Supreme, whose first arc (The Story of the Year) builds out the titular superhero's backstory thru flashbacks to supreme's gold and silver-age history. the flashback tales are deftly weaved into supreme's ongoing adventures; Moore knows that he can't dip back into the earnestly modern waters of 50s/60s superman--er, supreme--without acknowledging how much has changed in comics (and our world) since then, so he doesn't try. he leans into the paradoxes that arise in a, dare i say, postmodern fashion. anyways i probably sound like a dipshit asshole so i will stop now. read Supreme! it's awesome! it's supreme.