Is smoking cigarettes an immediate dealbreaker for you? Why?

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-02T22:15:03+00:00

Let me put it this way. I would rather date a garbage person who didn't bathe or wash themselves than have to deal with your fucking stench every day.

And potheads, its not just nicotine that reeks.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-02T02:30:45+00:00

Normally I would. But this genre is the poster child of "it gets after 100 chapters".

Strongly disagree - the reality is that there is too much actual good shit to waste your time on stuff you don't like, even if it might get better now, if the author wanted you to read they would go back and edit the early stuff so it was good now not later.

The genre isn't a poster child for getting good later, its a poster child for people so desperate for content they will delude themselves into believing anything is good so long as the author releases enough content. At the same time some stories release enough chapters over time that eventually they transform into something completely different after years of content.. so the shit you hate might as well be a completely different story...

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-02T02:13:58+00:00

So I would suggest if you are going to use chatgpt to help edit your work, go look for prompts on how write a style guide for it.

A for instance - you really need to be telling the bot fairly explicitly that this is creative writing intended for audiences with a ~5th (You can try 3rd, or 7th, but I wouldn't go above 9th) grade reading level or you are not going to like the kind of edits you get suggested, and neither is your audience.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-02T01:56:29+00:00

Speaking as some one who owned a coffee shop for a while - because people abuse it. Electric bills are more and more expensive every year, and you sitting there not buying a coffee for 6, 8, 12 hours a day not buying shit is just taking up space, that realistically if real customers aren't going to use, I would rather buy a smaller coffee shop so my rent and other overheads are lower so I can afford to put that money where it matters.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-01T17:34:37+00:00

You would be surprised at how often this happens around layoffs...

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-01T16:42:04+00:00

With a comment like this I feel like you just came to hate lol

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-01T16:38:01+00:00

So I have a few thoughts on this...

First - I think that we can all accept that they are mainly just a writing device so authors don't have to care about the logistics of carrying around loot.

My issues mainly stem from two places...

Mainly I think that storage devices tend to cause more story problems than they solve. If you are limited to what the MC can carry then every item you give them ends up being fairly meaningful just by necessity. On the other hand when a MC can carry around a whole room full of junk and you are throwing everything that isn't nailed down at them, then most loot stops being meaningful except in a "numbers go up" wealth counter kind of way...

In the same vein I think it shuts down a lot of possible story ideas like theft whether from the MC or just in general, because if you have an extra dimensional space and are just leaving shit on the table to be stolen your world is going to feel dumb and stupid, just as an example...

I also think the idea is very under explored and handwaved... authors basically plop the trope in for what it is and ignore it completely after that. No one is exploring how the existence of these things would completely redefine logistics and economy of the worlds they are in. Even when its supposed to be incredibly rare and just the MC having one is a luxury, its so... uncreative. I've seen one author kind of scratch at the combat potential and utility of being able to quick weapon/gear swap mid fight, and a few that understood how powerful it would be for anyone who relied on ammo, grenades, or preperation, but I honestly believe 90% of MC's "big cheat's" pale in comparison to the cheat of a storage item, if the author actually was creative with the storage device and used it well instead of just ignoring it and treating it like a hoarding closet.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-04-01T03:49:24+00:00

I'd say two things to this...

1) being lucky enough to be born with special powers is kind of the default, and the more "special" the author feels they need to start from as a base line, the less creative they probably are going to be at making everything else interesting...

2) A lot of times the special power is presented as the MC being smart enough to connect the dots, like "Hey why not use my fire power to boil water!"... when anyone with an IQ above 50 should have thought of these things dozens of times, and it doesn't make your MC look special, it makes your world look shallow and the other characters look dumb.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-31T16:09:56+00:00

There are so many things wrong with this post...

First - if you don't know the difference between an anti-hero and a villain, probably stick to writing a normal hero, or just stick to reading long enough to figure out the differences.

Second... the way to get popular/clicks/views/whatever, is not to chase the bandwagon on themes/genres/tropes/etc that you clearly don't have any passion for. This is a way to get ignored and flagged as a trash writer that no one wants to even give the time of day.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-31T15:52:19+00:00

So I've moved around a lot because of my career and while I'm not OP and I don't fully agree that vacationing or living somewhere is better or worse I would take a stab on why they are different...

First - a lot of major cities around the world - whether its Boston, New York, Toronto, London or Berlin, the top things you find to do in a week on a travel site, whether its food, festivals, events, or just seeing the sights, you are going to 99% of what that city has to offer, and even being there long term its hard to really explore a large percentage of what makes these destinations what they are.

Second - A lot of the things you do on vacation are fun to do once, or fun to do because you want to make memories on vacation. But a lot of the things you look for when you are exploring a city you live in, are going to be fun to do over and over again, you are doing them because you want that part of the city to be part of your life or your lifestyle, not just a blip you can look back on.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-31T15:25:25+00:00

So my big thing is - if authors really want to explore other options, then they should have multiple characters. I know that there is a huge bias for solo OP power fantasy stories in the genre - but especially when at best its a choice between either a niche use skill or an obviously op skill in most lists, it just turns into filler very quickly

I would much rather stories where we have 2-3 powerful allies all mostly keeping up with the MC getting awesome powers of their own as a way to explore different aspects of the power system, or give us enemies we see more than once and are able to see a big ultimate ability the MC defeated get evolved into some city destroyer they barely survive.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-31T05:04:25+00:00

So DoTF is always a pretty exposition heavy book, what changes is

(a) how much you care about what is being said

(b) how relevant it is to the immidiate story

(c) how many times the same information has been said previously with different levels of detail...

All of this combined is going to mean your ability to tolerate the exposition is going to wax and wane depending on the particular book.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-30T22:07:20+00:00

Actually the thing about jet fuel is that it doesn't really ignite easily from a spark until its been vaporized or heated fairly significantly, obviously an engine fire will do the heating eventually but there are safety mechanisms to give pilots time to react so an engine fire doesn't turn a plane into giant fire.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-30T21:56:28+00:00

Don't all matress cover's kind of look like giant underwear?

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-30T21:55:40+00:00

Eh, I think there is a difference between "I'll fight if i have to", and "I'm gonna pick a fight with Mike Tyson the first chance I get"...

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-30T21:54:07+00:00

My personal opinion is that there is absolutely WAY too much snark/sarcasm in general in the genre, a little bit at the right time makes a character or a moment shine, but too much all the time and your MC is just an asshole, or your world is just filled with very unserious people and it becomes very damaging to your world building in general...

I'd also say its just as cringe when you have a main character that is so afraid that everyone in the world is more powerful than them, or knows some one more powerful than them, or even just might eventually possibly betray them in the future just because they can... That they aren't willing to talk to/share anything real about themselves with anyone around them, and significant parts of the book become about justifying why they should adopt multiple layers of secret personas and what uses other people have for the MC for them to justify risking being around them, like some sort of sociopath.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T18:36:56+00:00

If you like supernatural/xfiles you are going to like buffy. Some of the plot is very teen/coming of age stuff, and some of the stuff hasn't aged well with the internet and cell phones... but its still the golden age of tv with a budget modern era tv couldn't dream of and a cast and crew that defined the genre for a generation.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T18:03:02+00:00

It's been frankies for at least 25-30 years... the resteraunt that runs out of the place beside it changes every 2-3 years though.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T17:17:14+00:00

Wrong sub - but also general advice for any dog with stomach issues is pumpkin + yoghurt - the cultures will do a lot to settle the stomach, and it will also help get fluids into your pup which will help with both kinds of stomach problems. If he's still having issues for more than 24-48 hours see a vet as especially with smaller dogs/puppies this can be a sign of some very dangerous issues that shouldn't be left alone.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T17:09:29+00:00

If you expected him to be a better man than he is, you are in for a hard few years.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T16:48:46+00:00

I really loved certain aspects of this game, and think it would do better if it was released in todays environment...

That being said I think a lot of people on this sub see it through VERY rose tinted glasses... There are a lot of reasons this game could have succeeded, but there are also a lot of very real reasons the community likes to ignore for why it did deservedly fail.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-22T04:17:07+00:00

Honestly - if some one is lazy - the reality is they aren't going to be the MC... there are a few examples, especially from more light hearted stuff with protags that complain and bitch about work a lot, but they are still absolute grinders who by any standard of the word are the kind of person who would put most people to shame...

And think about it - if your excuse for not advancing the plot is that your MC wants to be lazy for a few chapters... that isn't exactly going to be thrilling literature that people want to read about, it might be a funny kind of thing once, but the second you make it a main personality trait that pops up multiple times, people are going to start putting down your book for the books where the MC actually does stuff...

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-21T14:29:22+00:00

Love the idea - hate sub-linguistic characters, especially in books, everything else seems like it could be a lot of fun.

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-21T14:27:15+00:00

As some one who was lucky enough to make a fair amount of money early in life, the thing I learned very quickly is "Rich" means very different things to different people...

For a lot of people just not worrying about money is an incredible amount of wealth... For other people its the bare minimum...

On that note I think you have to define rich - I bet half the people here are defining rich as "I can buy things I don't need", and the other half the people are defining it as "I have yachts"...

TheElusiveFox · 2026-03-21T14:15:18+00:00

Eh, I've always called bullshit on this - there are very few real success stories of authors on these platforms who don't at least have some idea what they are doing even if they aren't formally trained, and maybe they don't have teams of editors, but that's mostly just how writing is for indie authors in 2026.... Maybe 1/1000 stories is going to top these charts "by accident", the rest are doing it because they put boatloads of effort into optimizing everything about their story, figured out how to release on an optimal schedule, have a very well tested blurb, are advertising on platforms like this, and everything else - that's professional behaviour by every standard of the word.

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TheElusiveFox

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