#Annoyances

[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!

[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..."

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Things that annoy you??

Hmm...can my answer be “everything?”

No, not really, but I can get irritated frequently even if I never actually do or say anything about it.

Let’s see—brace yourselves /j

Having to repeat myself

Being interrupted or not being listened to

Group projects

When other people are inconvenient about schedules (I'm a hypocrite about this one.)

Loud noises/when people speak too loudly

When people are overly theatrical in real life (How ironical, I know.)

Side note: If you're simply expressive, I hope you actually mean it. (Again, I can be a hypocrite with this one. And if it's starting to look like I despise all whimsy, that's not true. Some things just have a right time, place, and execution for them to appeal to me.)

When/if people mock me

Immature senses of humor

When people seem insincerely nice

Artifice in general

When people do not value literature/literacy or think STEM is automatically the superior domain

When people are overly enthusiastic for reasons I don’t understand (No offense to anyone—probably too many things seem performative/ritualistic to me, but again, I get it if people are just expressive.)

When people are too “cutesy” and infantilize themselves (Honestly, doing this feels dumb—I have no real reason for having this opinion as far as I can tell. I just think people should act their age, in most cases. Of course, I understand if someone cannot. That's different from people who try to make you like them or who are trying to sell you something. This also applies to some neologisms. I mean, "icks?" Come on. Not everything has to be akin to baby-talk or onomatopoeia. Also, “boo-boos.” If you’re not a parent, child, or pediatrician, why use it?)

When people are overly, unrealistically optimistic

When people are overly humble and use too much self-deprecation without prompting (I understand to an extent and sometimes people need conversation buffers, but do you want me to agree with you or disagree and reassure you? Sometimes it’s hard and I have to lie. You’ve just created an uncomfortable situation for us both, especially if it's irl. Why would you admit all your shortcomings to me??? I don't completely understand that either.)

Small talk when literally no one cares (Occasionally, it can be nice. Usually, it is boring.)

In a similar vein, talking about vacations or weekends, sometimes

Food if it’s cooled down too much

Glaring sunlight

Electric toothbrushes

The fact that my neurons will die if I don’t sleep

When people shriek and scare me without meaning to

When students I tutor have the same, old problems in their essays (It gets old, but I can understand why it happens.)

Frauds and possibly some conspiracy theorists, snake oil salesmen, anyone who cheats the elderly, etc.

When people are wishy-washy

Certain malapropisms. (The only exceptions are if you're clearly doing it on purpose (real-life puns? use in literature?) or are named William Shakespeare. Aside from those instances, I can't think of anytime that this wouldn't interfere with conversation. Though, if you genuinely don't know, I will not fault you.)

Incorrect grammar (Ok, this one’s tendentious—I’ll just say my opinion on this may shift and I’m in the process of re-evaluating my views. I will forgive anyone who doesn't know any better or wasn't taught or has reasonably forgotten, just not people who do it on purpose—unless it's for stylistic purposes or for another good reason. I.e., unless you're trying to make your point more precise or you're making some kind of deliberate, rhetorical move, why would you use certain constructions? Generally, there are a few I do not like, but that's subjective.)

Too many sequins or general tackiness and some plastic, modern things (This one's also subjective, of course. Sorry if I have terrible taste to you.)

Certain technological updates that require me to adapt or that have a learning curve/starkly different visual display

Hot wax

Certain too-saccharine things, and that's both on a literal and figurative level. Take chewing gum for instance. Also, certain types of cake frosting.

[headspacedad]

just curious

does this actually work? Does anyone in the entire internet at this point actually look at that and go 'hmmmm, I bet there IS a hot single in my area just waiting for me' and click on that link? Like 'oooo, look at all those emojis! That looks entirely sane and legit!' Other than causing someone about five seconds of annoyance before they report and block this, what possible use could programming bots to send out these messages have?

so - thanks, Antonina. I really want to have fun too. Just not that way and not with you.

Quickk!!

[ghostsandfools]

Getting stuck

Do you guys ever get stuck? Here's an example. Like, if you want to play video games, but you feel like you need to do chores, and so you just don't do either? Doing chores sounds awful and boring, and maybe it would take a while, or there's obstacles in the way. But then you can't play your video games either because you feel useless or lazy, to the point where even the thought of playing anything makes you sick. Is there a word for that?

[stoicmike]

Annoying people don’t see themselves as annoying, because annoyance is their medium. -- Michael Lipsey

[aromantisk-fagforening]

politics is important and all but wow I hate the language used in politics. Unclear, vague language. emotionally charged accusations that tell you nothing. inventing new terms without defining them. the same words meaning different things in different political parties.

[dollarstorecrush]

Call me a boomer idc but I miss the days when video games were released fully completed

Like when you bought the game, you didnt have first-week patches just to make it playable

[cleverthylacine]

Those fragging pornbots

(oh no, I swear I didn't actually do that on purpose BUT--)

The follows don't really bother me but I report them.

The posts in my favourite tags are very annoying indeed.

But the likes on my posts? That hurts, Tumblr. I get that cool little "somebody likes my stuff" rush of endorphins! --and then it turns out it's a pornbot. Fuck that noise.

People think I don't care what anyone thinks of me. That isn't true.

I don't care what other people--particularly those I don't know who hold opinions that I don't respect--think of me enough to pretend I'm someone I'm not, or to change my deeply considered opinions about things--particularly my own life experiences--because they're unpopular.

But I want to be liked, because pretty much everyone does. And I want people to like my stuff.

[secretmellowblog]

Hiii!!! I jusþ want to mention I really love Annoyances as a story! I dont have many coherent words to say about it, but its dialogue and narration and the way everything is described, the dynamics akd the character actions and the prose and the plot itself, its all so incredibly lovely to me, and I think you should be very proud of having written something so wonderful and sad and funny

Thank you so much, you're very kind!!! :_; And yeah, I use Annoyances as a way of both writing a Les Mis fanfic and also venting my thoughts/analysis of the characters, and exploring their characterization in ways that are more complicated than what I can get into in a tumblr post; it's my love letter to the novel, and I'm really glad you enjoy it! I'm glad people are still following it despite the long hiatuses, and that people are still coming back for this new chapter.

[mad-heynaru]

Oh yeah YouTube, hide the watch later playlist at the very bottom because we don’t need that button anywhere in sight, but DO TOTALLY PUT LITTLE THUMBNAILS NEXT TO SEARCHES THATS REALLLLLLYYYY HELPFUL!!!

[mintymash]

I'm anti-sans au bullshit. Why? Because it's an oversaturated mess of weirdly designed skeleton boys with little to no personality and basically is the next wave of mary Sues, but at least mary sues are more interesting than edgy sans au number 1243235. I feel like slapping stuff together on some skeleton that is based on an already preexisting character is just annoying, like you're an artist, draw a skeleton that is original, and make it an original skeleton! WE NEED MORE ORIGNAL SKELETONS!!! Also fuck you skeletor is better.

[bringerofdeathandtheapocolypse]

You know what I love? My laptop randomly deciding it doesn't want to save what I've written even after I manually saved it myself.

Once again about have of a chapter just evaporated from my document (this time chapter 22)

Thankfully, I was able to do a recovery and got it back so I don't need to rewrite it again. But god did I feel ready to cry and smack my head into my keyboard at my work just being gone.

[ladythatsmyskull]

Using an electron microscope attempting to locate the ‘X’ to close the browser pop-up.

[nonenosome12]

I really wish there was a "Mark as Liked when Reblogging" setting because I reblog stuff if I like it, so why do I have to do two things everytime when I just want to get the "based on your likes" stuff.