Small details you hate to see in stories

[Haku45]

For me it's simple. If author trying gaslight me. I pretty stupid and I know it very well. But not in case of story telling. I hate if I see that. And sometimes it's really not a big deal. But for me, it can ruin story

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Preachiness and "morally superior" protagonists. Dude, you're not a saint for not killing the bandits. That's actually just normal human behavior. You're not a saint for being better than the people of your world. If they believe in evil shit, that just means you're normal.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

I don't like male vampires.

 

[Rhaps]

Preachiness and "morally superior" protagonists. Dude, you're not a saint for not killing the bandits. That's actually just normal human behavior. You're not a saint for being better than the people of your world. If they believe in evil shit, that just means you're normal.

Depends on the situation really, stories with the "Evil Protagonist" tags do this pretty well as it has established the MC is evil and any attempt to gain "moral superiority" is a deception, it hightlights how evil the MC is

 

[Tyranomaster]

Knowledge being thrown around without understanding the implications of how that knowledge would be acquired. School systems in our world have really made most people believe that knowledge is just given and easy to come across. Like how many people drank lead because pipes were made of it before we figured out why that was a bad idea.

Most of the time, it's medical information. In our world, an extremely large amount of our understanding of the dangers and symptoms of disease progression came from the Nazi and Japanese experimentation on human test subjects during world war two. Without throwing anyone under the bus, I dropped a novel recently because they were trying to portray demons as a sympathetic race that were actually humans who've succumbed to a disease. Except the demons knew, down to the minute, how long you could go without taking an antidote before you'd succumb as well. Along with various ways the antidote could be taken, and how much matters. There aren't any other humans portrayed as living among the demons, which has some incredibly evil implications as to how they figured that information out.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Lack of details in a story(lacking the descriptions to put even a base image in the head)

Moral stupidity (when an author states characters have the moral high ground while writing about them doing undeniably evil acts)

Sexual descriptions(especially if it includes bad anatomy)

 

[owotrucked]

it's not a dealbreaker, but I'm a bit frustrated by plot roadrailing the meta without leaving the opportunity for the MC to express their personal skills and methods.

Take a regression story for instance. The story may introduce a future ordeal with a single unique solution and the course of actions of the MC presents itself as self-evident. Then the MC will execute their plan imperfectly (for instance being too lovely) which results in surprising outcomes, that the MC then has to react to. This turn into a chain of reactive fumbling->surprise while MC constantly follows the meta of the each events.

In this case, the MC isn't very proactive and shows a "imposter" self where they just chase after a given solution that they didn't plan themselves.

In general, that's an issue mainly present in plots where MC has too much information (isekai into game/novel or regression) and chase after specific outcomes. People only truly show their real self when dealing with the unknown and fog of war and I feel that it clashes with the result-centric behavior of those MC.

 

[georgelee5786]

Any small details they tell me when I easily could've just derived them myself without being outright told

 

[Sergeandgreen]

Isekai stories where the previous live doesn't matter. I mean, why make it an isekai then? Just grab a person of that world and give him cheats.
I also hate it when MCs don't need to pay for really stupid decisions just because they have plot armor.

 

[foxes]

The little details may be many, but if I get an emotional experience I won't care. But it's starting to get annoying when every new story in the top is a hero loli demon or demon theme. Maybe it's getting to the point where it's already outgrown my detail.

 

[ThatTwat3000]

Without throwing anyone under the bus, I dropped a novel recently because they were trying to portray demons as a sympathetic race that were actually humans who've succumbed to a disease. Except the demons knew, down to the minute, how long you could go without taking an antidote before you'd succumb as well. Along with various ways the antidote could be taken, and how much matters.

In another opinion, I would say that is very realistic; dumb people in our world do dumb things medically, even if they are wonderful people in other regards. Such as with not taking vaccinations, not looking out for their health, and brushing aside that tumor in their brain while saying it will heal naturally.

 

[Tyranomaster]

In another opinion, I would say that is very realistic; dumb people in our world do dumb things medically, even if they are wonderful people in other regards. Such as with not taking vaccinations, not looking out for their health, and brushing aside that tumor in their brain while saying it will heal naturally.

I'm not sure if you don't understand the implication, or if your moral compass is so whack that you think that people chosing to something dumb like not treating their own cancer is the moral equivalent to the horrors that Dr. Mengele and Unit 731 performed on people.

The implication is that the demons purposefully exposed people to this illness, then timed how long they could last before transformed. (I didn't mention it, but the antidote is bodily fluids from a demon). Then tried various tests to see how their fluids would affect people's progression on the matter. The other doesn't explain how they gained this precise knowledge, but they do describe how when you become a demon, for hundreds of years you become a beast with no memories of your former self, so that information can't just be self reported.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Spoiler: This.

 

[BloodCeremony]

horny boys. unless the tag clearly says mature, but if there's no such things and suddenly your main character oggling every female and they turns out to be his fangirl in heat then yada yada, then i'm sorry, because at that point there's no way you're not projecting your fantasy. i would like to ask these author to just focus on the story and not let your bdsm alpha big D horse stamina fetish manifestation ruin the main character AND the story. additional minus point if the girls are clearly dumb as frog but the narrative says they are SUPPOSEDLY oppenheimer level of smart.

 

[Bartun]

Preachiness and "morally superior" protagonists. Dude, you're not a saint for not killing the bandits. That's actually just normal human behavior. You're not a saint for being better than the people of your world. If they believe in evil shit, that just means you're normal.

That's exactly my MC! Well, that's until she gets a reality check and starts to see that the world is not black and white.
For me would be the stupidly beautiful people somehow being considered 'average'

 

[Thraben]

It's very particular to myself and a very small minority of people who think like me, but my complaint is "god damn some stories seem allergic to the concept of narrative realism"

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Practicing a weapon alone and getting good at it by running at targets and swinging said weapons in fancy ways. Footwork is a thing people! Also, you need a practice partner so you can develop the microadjustments to actually make combat viable.