#annoyances

[stoicmike]

Why are you so bothered by things that don't really matter? -- Michael Lipsey

[willowmightbeawisp]

"Oh hey, cabbage liked one singular fanart post. Let's suggest them nothing except for things that relate to that subject for the next 50 william years!"

-Tumblr Algorithm

[batboyblog]

I think an issue is that many authors treat diversity like a checklist, instead of being like "oh and maybe i'll make him Gay" its more like "okay, so I need a gay character, a black character, a wheelchair user"

I remember reading a book and like a side character, which is being generous he was barely in the book, introduced us to his: black, bisexual, trans, wheelchair using girlfriend who has like 2 lines?

and its like... did you do that because you had anything to say about any of that or just because you wanted people on X and TikTok to say you're a good person and gush about "representation" in their bookTok reviews of your work?

I'm reading a book rn set in a fictionalized Middle Ages/early renaissance England, Knights, horses, even Christianity and the Catholic Church, France etc and I get its not serious, but one character's family is from "Thailand" a place that did not exist at the time, Europeans called it "Siam" and also the nation looked really different from the modern name we know today, it'd be like saying someone was from "France" in a book set in the Roman Empire. Another person's family has roots in Iran, which again, not what Europeans called the place, and also Iran was a part of a central Asian empire founded by Tamerlane at roughly the time this book takes place so like thats a thing?

for sure I get wanting to have diversity in a book, just like, put some thought into it? England would have had contact with North Africa, and the Levant, and in the late Middle Ages and Tudor times we have records of "Moorish" ie black people in England, so do that? also "Turks" a catch all at the time for Turkish and Arab and really anyone who was Muslim or middle eastern. And hey Jews faced a great deal of discrimination and persecution at the time in Europe maybe dig into that?

So often diversity in books today feels like checking boxes, the more labels you thoughtlessly drop the better, its okay you have nothing to say and didn't even think about it at all, you said the character over there in the corner was a minority its fine they have nothing to do, you're a good person for just saying so

[wanderingmind867]

Great. Daylight savings time starts or ends or whatever tomorrow. As if I needed my body clock to be destroyed even more than it already is. I hate that we have to deal with daylight savings time year after year, because it's infuriating and it tends to make it hard for me to readjust for a few days. I'm not looking forward to it.

I'm really used to daylight savings time, but I'm unhappy that I actually am still forced to deal with it. Daylight savings time is such an annoyance.

[knightoflodis]

Question. You just started reading a new story (prose, comic, show, whatever) and you are currently enjoying it. Then a new character pops up that feels like they are either going to be the main love interest or the main antagonist. And going off vibes alone, it feels like this could be a character that could ruin your entire enjoyment of a series, especially if they are there constantly instead of occasionally. What do you do?

Drop the series before you get even more invested, better to not take risks

Look up spoilers to see how if they are going to be infuriating

Soldier on and hope that your instincts are wrong

Try to find someone that knows the story and ask about the character

Some other option (include in comments/tags/whatever)

No single character has annoyed me enough that this is an issue

Voting ended onJan 22, 2025

[secretmellowblog]

just finished reading Annoyances and I am in awe of your ability to get inside Jean Valjean’s fucked up little brain and all the layers of trauma and weird Catholic theology that surround it. A million kudos!

Ahh thank you so much!! I’ve appreciated your live-blogging comments a lot, and will likely reply to them soon </3 ;-;.

And yeah! Jean Valjean is such a complicated mess of a character, and I find it interesting how a century of adaptations have all struggled to tap into what makes him so complex and compelling. People say that majority of Les mis adaptations focus on Valjean and Javert, but I don’t think that’s true—- I have this theory that most Les mis adaptations focus on Javert, to the point of over-writing Javert and over-complicating his character to the point where he no longer makes sense, and that Valjean is often very underwritten as a result. I think the musical and Arai manga are the two biggest exceptions to this, because for all their changes they do feel very interested in exploring Valjean’s inner life and weird canon Hangups in a way that few adaptations genuinely do.

But yeah not to be pretentious, but I love writing Annoyances (whenever I have the spoons for it) because it helps me figure out why I find him so compelling!! fanfic is a form of adaptation, and trying to adapt something yourself is very underrated as a tool for helping you understand and analyze canon.

Writing the fourth chapter took a while and went through fifty revisions until it was unrecognizable, because I spent time going back though Tempest in a Skull/Immortal Liver/similar chapters trying to figure How To Flowchart Diagram a Valjean Mental Breakdown. I can’t speak to how good the final chapter is (it initially had a few egregious typos) but it did really help me understand how his character worked in a way I hadn’t before, because I had an excuse to close-read chapters I already loved.

Oh and here’s the link for people who haven’t read it!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[mostlyghostie]

Journals

Just realised that an Etsy error has been showing the cost of my new book journal as the same in both the UK and overseas, meaning that I've been making a loss of a few quid for every journal I've sold overseas so far!

I have had to increase the price overall as it seems the error doesn't have a fix, so if you're in the UK and want to buy one, please get in touch and I can send you a code to take £5 off your order.

(Boring explanation: Postage internationally is very expensive unfortunately due to the weight and Etsy makes you give free shipping in the US over a certain purchase price, so that's why I have to balance the cost in that way- not trying to make a huge profit, just making sure I don't make a loss!)

[ayyy-imma-ninja]

Sk Moon what was the most annoying thing You had to do as a security guard?

Dealing with a impatient manager? Rude customers that try to lay hands-on you because they don't get their way? Teens doing illegal stuff in the parking lot? Anything like that?

The manager is usually pretty chill, but Moon has to constantly fight with him about implementing new rules to the park. Moon is used to rude customers, doesn't mean he likes dealing with them. He's dealt with rowdy teens before and usually just has to scare them away.

But what he hates dealing with the most?

"Smokers..."