My theory that is based on peer reviewed stomach pain and countless documented disappointments related to Arby’s Prime Rib Cheesesteak, German Bratwurst on Pretzel bun, and assorted marketing gimmicks, is that Arby’s sandwiches are in fact the same shit on a different bun. This assertion is supported by qualitative and quantitative analyses drawn from consumer testimony, controlled taste comparisons, and a review of promotional menu cycles. Across all examined products, findings reveal a consistent core composition in both texture and flavor profile, with variation limited almost exclusively to the bun type and minor condiment adjustments. The recurrence of identical base components, paired with a statistically significant correlation to adverse digestive responses, suggests that perceived novelty in Arby’s marketing is primarily superficial, functioning as a rebranding of an unchanging culinary substrate rather than the introduction of genuinely distinct menu innovations.
I say all that, because I now believe that my Arby's theory can be extended to pretty much every day of my life, and everything in it.
I have a map pin with a doo-doo emoji in Google Maps over my local Arby's. I have a bad memory, so it's ostensibly there as a context clue to remind me never to go there when I see an ad and say to myself "Oh, Arby's has real smoked country style ribs™? Maybe this time it won't taste like horse's asshole with the turd still in it!!." and off I go to be disappointed again.
I remember growing up watching the news and seeing minor disasters, or layoffs, or a murder here and there. Now, I can't even watch the news because it's a constant cycle of tragedy, and as I get older, the Arby's sandwiches that life cooks up for me cost more than I can afford, somehow have less bun and more pain, and taste even shittier.
One of my solutions has to been to write stories.
I write so that I can see out of the eyes of my characters and live vicariously through them.
I introduce characters that are a hybrid admixture of people I once knew, in places I've once visited, at times I've once lived through that were not as Arby-ified. I completely Un-Arbified the situation by writing different outcomes for situations I once found myself in and playing "What if".
Not all of my stories are recycled real-life adventures, but one technique I've discovered to make writing authentic is to put yourself into the situation and be the eyes and ears of the reader; as a fly on the wall observing or one of the characters. Provide context clues as to what they are thinking without dropping a mountain of exposition on the reader's head to wade through. Take them on this journey WITH the character so they can enjoy the ups and downs of life without returning to Arby's to find out that they are out of Potato Cakes on the one day you were craving one of the few things that made going there worth a shit.
To extend my theory and put the ANAL in Analogy, there aren't many restaurants around me besides Arby. If I want anything to eat, I've got to pull up to the only counter serving. In my youth, I had a lot of places I could go to get something, and Arby's food wasn't half-bad. The sandwiches seemed bigger and fresher, and they were affordable.
I make quite a bit more than I did in my twenties, and I could NEVER afford to rent the SAME exact places I lived back in those heady days. I used to turn heads and get noticed. If I had the audacity to flirt with a woman now, that would seem creepy. I never learned to flirt in my twenties because girls came up to ME and flirted.
In my thirties, I was in the prime of my life. I guess that's the era when Arby's got into gourmet-style sandwiches and high-quality meats. The forty year old me was so ripped and jacked that I could have kicked TWO of my twenty-year old selves asses. I was too busy living life back then to write about it.
Now, in the immortal wisdom and words of the great Lynyrd Skynyrd ----- ALL I CAN DO IS WRITE ABOUT IT.
So, why don't I publish on here?
Well, since nobody asked, or gives a fuck, I'll tell you anyway.
I have about a dozen stories on my hard drive that are near finished. I get inspired and start a new one and tend to write only stories when I am inspired because the quality of the story is much better. I can knock out chapters quickly when I "free-write" and just sit down and get focused.
The problems are like Arby's sandwiches - too numerous to mention, and they are all basically flavors of the same thing.
The first is quite simply that I have no "muse". I have a couple of long-time friends on here that help me out, and without them, I'd have given up on this place a long fucking time ago.
The user community is largely the most toxic I've ever encountered. It's not 4chan trollboi level, but the forums feel like toxic waste dumps. If I ask for help, feedback, or comment, there will be one or two users there ready to pounce on me with negative shit, and an avalanche starts. My intent for an open dialogue and having a constructive exchange of ideas where we may take away a different perspective and even learn things is naive at best.
People may ask "You expected something like that on the INTERNET?" as they laugh.
It would be the same as expecting something other than stomach pain and disappointment by eating at Arby's.
The thing is - why keep going some place and expecting different results if you know it's never going to be like you remembered or hoped?
For one - it's pretty much the only place I know. There is another forum focused on Embarrassed Nude Females. I once touted how positive the community was, but I spoke too soon. The toxic trollbois popped out almost immediately like karma's little helpers to prove to me how silly I was to think that. I had a 29 chapter story in progress about a girl that wants to convince her family to have a nudist household which I was very proud of.
Unsolicited Comments like "Go outside and touch grass" and "You write boring stories" are common when you are an author. Pointless trolls who contribute nothing like Statler and Waldorf sitting in the balcony week after week throwing out snotty grams are common here. However, you can turn off commenting on stories and hit block when someone wastes your time sending you one.
On that forum, they get added to your story as you post it, permanently. It's like a commercial break in the middle of your favorite TV show to tell you what a shitty television show you are watching.
Let's face it, the only Anal I am doing lately is analogies, so to continue it;
It's like I am sweating in my garden to trim roses for people to smell, only to have to step in dog-shit every time I walk through it to tend to another plant. I have to read it each and every time I open up the forum post. The admins (to their credit) took care of the issue, but not before my creativity was drained and I shit-canned the stories. Every time I go back to those stories, I think about those comments and relive those instead of the fun word pictures I was trying to evoke.
For Two - I have no muse.
I asked for editing help a few months ago, and a few kind people responded. I sent them what I was working on, and most were either overwhelmed, uninterested, or sent me back "I am reading," and I never heard from them again. You can't instantly make a connection with people and have a rapport. I understand that.
I stayed in touch with the long time friends I've known on here for a reason. They are different but they also aren't into my stories and don't really want to offer any helpful guidance. I need that feedback to keep me motivated and focused, and fresh.
I made a deal with myself a long time ago, when I first began as a writer. It's a deal, I would encourage EVERY author to make, whether they are experienced or haven't even begun yet.
1 - Don't publish a story until you finish it.
Every time I have broken that rule, I regret the shit out of it. I have a couple stories on here that I consider to be some of the best I've ever written. I just can't put an ending on them. My New Pony story, and Visiting Aunt Scarlett.
It's not a coincidence that BOTH of these were actually collaborations with Mike McGifford (one of those long-term friends). I started publishing them and then lost the spark, and now they've been in limbo forever.
2 - Read as much as you write.
I find as a good rule of thumb that it's best to read as much as I write. If I write three chapters, I should read three chapters of someone else's content.
The intent isn't to copy their style or content! The intent is just to stay fresh as an author and learn new techniques through observation.
I began writing for very selfish reasons. I simply wanted to write to inspire others to write similar stories. I loved stories in the genre of Mike McGifford, Amanda Serve, Vulgus, Phil Phantom, Hooked6, Tailweaver, and MaryS. I was hoping to give back to the community that gave to me, and INSPIRE others to write like they inspired me.
Then, I could read more content like the kind I enjoy reading.
However, as time went on, I realized how completely naive that was. I've managed to inspire and encourage a few authors who are also on that long-term friend list. If I've done more than that, I don't know about it.
It was Hooked6 and Vulgus in particular, who made writers out of me.
I didn't just like their genre. I liked HOW they crafted a story. I studied HOW they told it and learned to SHOW the reader and not TELL the reader.
I have always been a good bullshitter, and I've worked in strip clubs and had a colorful life. I can draw from people watching and personal experience to craft fantastical situations that still seem authentic and genuine because I can reflect those observations. I can live them again in a new form by giving them life when I put them down on paper. That's the good stuff.
That's the money shot - the whole reason I do this now.
I want to share these stories, but I don't like the negativity and I have nobody to bounce ideas off of that has the time or interest to actually offer anything more than "That's good, seems like a lot of words. I enjoyed skimming it before deleting". Well intentioned or not, the limited feedback that I receive isn't even a drip of water to a thirsty man. It's a bite of Arby's for a hungry man.
The secret to telling a good story is imagining you are sitting across from someone in a bar and talking to them - then just write what you'd say.
It was READING other people's stories that taught me how to enhance that. I could create a word picture with dialogue. I could cleverly HINT about things with clues.
Instead of writing "I am Darlene. I am 18 with hazel eyes and blonde hair, I live in Illinois, and this is my story..." you establish who she is, where she is, and what she looks like through the scene. I am not going to bore you with writing 101, but it was reading OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES and the actual mentorship of people on this site including Hooked and Vulgus that made me a better author.
All you have to do is read my early shit and see a huge improvement over time.
Am I the best writer?
No.
Am I trying to be?
Also, No.
I am just trying not to be the Arby's of writing and put the same shit on a different bun.
A lot of my stories are about the same topics; embarrassed nude females and power exchange relationships.
You could probably create a Chaucer's tales style set of character templates for my stories to classify many of the characters that I introduce. There is usually a nerdy kid who's too smart for his own good who really likes butts and quirky girls.
Here is a clue: That's me, dude.
I write myself into stories.
It's not that I am a narcissist (necessarily). It's that one way I can get into the story is to create my own alter-ego. I try to give some nuance and make them distinct, but ultimately that version of Eddie is persistent across many of my stories.
Then there is the creepy old blowhard who sometimes sounds smart. Yeah, that's old Eddie. I usually make him very different than me, and sometimes I have him marry a slutty woman that looks surprisingly like Morgan Fairchild (because why not).
Ever since I discovered AI to illustrate my stories, I've enjoyed adding pictures of myself into the background as Easter eggs. That's not the same thing. I just like to do that as a goof/easter egg for loyal readers to notice.
However, what I try to do with my stories that makes them different is explore a variety of topics. I am not about just describing fetishes and sexual encounters. Those are more of the background activity that happens WHILE the story is happening.
There is a famous line about a movie producer asking a writer about their script. In the script, the main characters are talking. The producer asks "What are they supposed to be doing while they are talking?"
"They are having a dialogue," the writer blithely responds because he doesn't understand that's not the story. The dialogue is one component of the scene. The body language, the activity, and all of it serve an outcome. Even when the scene is dialogue-heavy, I learned through reading that I could still move the story along.
I could go on and on about the lessons that I've learned through simply reading other authors. I've also learned what not to do by reading drek and AI slop that is passed off now as erotica.
Unfortunately, there are simply not enough positive/constructive/good examples of fiction to keep up with my ratio. If you haven't written a story, I would simply encourage you to write and publish here. If not for yourself to live vicariously through the characters, to inspire others (including me) to read it and write so you can enjoy more content.
Yes, you will get snotty grams, yes, you will have setbacks, but maybe your journey will be easier and not as Arbified as mine.
I plan to publish some stuff up, but I can't say when or what. I know that in my illustrious history on this site, that for the same reason I have over 1,100 people who took the time to click "Follow" on my stories. To get that many fantastically weird perverts who thought enough of my work to follow it and read it, I am sure I also generated quite a few trolls that hate my guts.
I was never writing for mainstream appeal and I never wanted to do that. I have never limited the topics or fetishes I write about. I don't believe in censorship and just because an author writes a war story - it doesn't mean they advocate war. If an author of murder stories writes about murder it doesn't mean they are telling you to murder. In my case, I am just reflecting that people are diverse and not everyone is into the same shit.
(Arby's, are you listening? That doesn't mean just change the bun!)
I may include femdom in my stories. That will piss off the man babies because they are insecure in their manhood.
In the same story, I may include someone who believes in more traditional submissive roles for women. That will piss off the people who think submission is a weakness and it's me spelling out a recipe for a society based on mysogony.
I have news for the trolls that downvote for that reason: Society IS based on mysogony, racism, greed, etc. No one needs Eddie to write a little story to tell them how to keep doing that. I am just writing a story, not preaching from the pulpit about how things ought to be. These people would have torn down books like 1984 and the Handmaid's tale because they think the authors are fascist assholes.
If I include pee-pee, or poo-poo, bondage, electric play or someone jerking off a dog - we are all adults and we know these stories are fiction. If you can handle someone's head being blown off in a war movie, you can handle a fetish that you don't personally do. If you can't - another option is not read it. I include story codes. I understand story codes. I dig story codes. I personally don't care what story codes you include in your story, but I respect someone's desire to not read a story that contains things that they don't like. You won't usually find that on traditional books.
Most people, especially the blithering trolls, don't usually read story codes. That's their choice, but what gets me is that they think the solution is sending nasty grams and downvoting, when the solution was reading the code and moving on. Trolls are the Arby's of the Internet. They don't really add anything, nobody will miss it when it's gone, and you aren't going to enjoy any interaction with them, even if you think you might this time.
The trolls think that by downvoting they will prevent people from writing about it, or maybe since they have literally no value in society and no other influence - this is all they can do.
I do this in part, because just like some people are vegan and maybe I am not, I can still include a vegan in my fucking story without being accused of 'promoting veganism'. Get it? I can write about a deaf person and not be deaf. I can write about someone who gets their rocks off a different way than me. That's what grown ups do. They all have different tastes. I don't ONLY write me. I write every motherfucking body that needs to be in the story with different opinions and tastes.
However, it gets me hate sometimes, which seems unwarranted. If you are going to be pissed off at me, there are a dozen reasons that may be warranted, but the fact I wrote a story that featured a girl who likes to pretend to be a kitty is not the one.
In any case, the ignorant trolls with nothing better to do irritatingly pounce as soon as they see my first chapter posted on the new site and hit "You call this a story" because the admin insists on a voting system that doesn't really work. It does add up and taken with everything else, it can make posting here much less fun than it should be.
When you have a small sample set, if only seven people vote and you have 1,000 readers, you have less than 1% of the population of readers deciding that the story is a 3.4. The only people voting that early are usually sycophants or trolls, with trolls outnumbering everyone. Most of my stories will eventually get in the tens of thousands of readers, but early on that story is going to get abused and beaten by the trolls.
I assume they have such limited real-world power, and since their time is largely worthless and of no value, that they have nothing better to do than pounce on new stories to down vote them. It's discouraging because most of my stories don't hit their stride until chapter seven.
I would also say for a new author, be aware that you have to suffer that in order to get published here. It's not a fun experience, but also turn comments off. They are on by default - shut them off.
Nine times out of ten, it's going to be some lazy ahole that didn't read story codes bitching "This contained (a story code from your story) and I don't like that, 3 out of 10!!!!"
Voting isn't objectively telling you the quality of your story. It's a means for people like him to punish you as an author for not writing only the fetishes he likes.
In conclusion, if life really is like Arby’s, then the cruelest part isn’t just that you keep getting served the same shit on a different bun, it’s that sometimes you bite in thinking you’ve finally found something worth chewing, only to realize halfway through that you are probably going to have the shits later.
I am not sure how that advice is really of value (much like Arby's - thus reinforcing my theory). Please follow me for more life advice/stories.