Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[hecheff]

I hate it when people refer to characters as "Mary Sues". Especially when it isn't accurate. Yes, they're powerful. What, every protagonist has to be a weak chicken shit who wins by some miracle?

If one has to choose between a Mary Sue and Deus Ex Machina...

[Lord Satori]

Are you referring to the series or the concept?

[hecheff]

The concept, in this case.

[Ed Oscuro]

You don't have to choose, though! Really, it's quite possible to have a fun and entertaining story which doesn't slip up in either of those areas - though I don't mind it if people make their exceptions to reality there, and not elsewhere, so long as the decision is made and followed through on thoughtfully. Hal Clement had this to say about writing (hard) science fiction:

"Writing a science fiction story is fun, not work. ... the fun ... lies in treating the whole thing as a game. ... [T]he rules must be quite simple. They are; for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them. For the author, the rule is to make as few such slips as he possibly can ... Certain exceptions are made [e.g., to allow travel faster than the speed of light], but fair play demands that all such matters be mentioned as early as possible in the story ..."

However, a story whose only notable departure from realism is in creating an omnipotent self-insertion, or deus ex machina, then it seems quite hard not to annoy your readers.

[Lord Satori]

Who said anything about self-inserts? Thats a different thing altogether.

[Specineff]

A capitol is a building where a state or city's legislature meets.

So please, stop calling cities like Austin the "capitol" of Texas, folks. I'm a foreigner and know the difference between that and "capitAl"

[Moniker]

However, a story whose only notable departure from realism is in creating an omnipotent self-insertion, or deus ex machina, then it seems quite hard not to annoy your readers.

Somewhat related (and most probably already know this): I recently investigated the origins of the term 'deus ex machina' and was kind of surprised. It started in ancient Greek tragedies in which gods (dei), eg Zeus, or Hercules, came to the rescue of the protagonist by way of (literal) trap doors or cranes (devices, or 'machina') to resolve the plot.

It's a much more mundane origin than I was expecting. Kinda deflates the 'Deus Ex' series; it's more a matter of mechanical dramatic device than metaphysical concept.

[hecheff]

However, a story whose only notable departure from realism is in creating an omnipotent self-insertion, or deus ex machina, then it seems quite hard not to annoy your readers.

Exceptions along the lines of "based on myself" exist, of course.
Ultimately, it comes down to how well the whole plot and its elements come together for one hell of a series (or not).

[Formless God]

Youtube's change password option doesn't actually change your Youtube password. It changes the password on some Google+ page while your Youtube one remains the same.

What
the
actual
fuck?

The actual link was in some obscure Help page after I resorted to a Google search (lol).

The Google+ page's Settings tab has nothing, and Google doesn't even have an Account Settings tab. Since when is hiding functionality away from users an acceptable thing? If I cannot find an option within 30 seconds of interacting with the page, it might as well be non-existent.

I miss the time when the apps I use made sense instead of being filled to the fucking brim with bloat and fancy graphical effects.

[Ed Oscuro]

Who said anything about self-inserts? Thats a different thing altogether.

I see your point - but "Mary Sue" has always had unfortunate sexist connotations, to me, and it's strongly associated with self-insertion, so I just substituted the phrase. "Mary Sue" doesn't have the same meaning without self-insertion, I don't think; even if it's a character that's not your gender or even race (Invader Zim?) it seems like wish fulfillment is integral to the idea.

@ hecheff: Yes, agreed!

@ Formless God: That reminds me how much fun I just had trying to upgrade the Intel Wi-Fi drivers in my laptop (on this page). There's descriptions of stuff to do, and bold text for four upgrade packages (XP and newer, and 32- and 64-bit variations), but no actual link to drivers! And automatic driver search doesn't work on my laptop, for some reason, no matter what browser I try.

But yeah...YouTube. Sometimes I find myself commenting using my real name - always when I don't want to - and sometimes I find myself commenting using with my 'net handle - again, always when I don't want to. Of course there's no easy way to switch from one to the other.

[Lord Satori]

Mary Sue is a girls name therefore, its sexist? That's some pretty amazing logic right there.

[Ed Oscuro]

Either you're trolling or you're incredibly oblivious. Yes, I think it's not acceptable for a term that perfectly describes, for example, Batman to have a name that is female only. If nothing else it's disrespectful to Bats and makes things needlessly awkward. More on point, did you miss all the discussion since the '70s about gendered pronouns? HEL-LO! Just because you can point to the history of the term (which I already knew) doesn't mean that it's acceptable to use it. This is true of many things which are called racist, sexist, or whatever.

Especially when the term itself isn't enlightening to people who don't know what it means already. Overall, it's not a term I need or want to defend.

And no, I'm not the only person who thinks this (the Batman example is given somewhere or other on the net). I don't see anything wrong with erring on the side of caution here.

Things that annoy the hell out of me: Misplaced attempts to "defend the language" or "defend tradition" which are just picking fight with people trying to be progressive. What's best about this example is that I'm not even condemning anybody for using the term, but this is typical of right-wing revisionism, too.

[Lord Satori]

So apparently sexism is one of your "buttons". Way to recognize a joke.

[trap15]

Jokes on the internet don't work when they sound like something you'd actually say.

Poe's Law, my man.

[Edmond Dantes]

When people sign onto skype (or some other internet chat program) but they're doing things IRL, like watching a movie or playing a video game.

This is like calling someone on the phone and then totally ignoring the phone conversation because you're watching TV. Why do people do this? Don't sign on to Skype if you're not gonna actually talk to people.

[gs68]

Disgusting bathrooms, especially when I have to shower in them.

[brentsg]

When people sign onto skype (or some other internet chat program) but they're doing things IRL, like watching a movie or playing a video game.

This is like calling someone on the phone and then totally ignoring the phone conversation because you're watching TV. Why do people do this? Don't sign on to Skype if you're not gonna actually talk to people.

Most people probably just have the client load upon boot. Besides, maybe they were logging in to talk to someone else.

[Ed Oscuro]

So apparently sexism is one of your "buttons". Way to recognize a joke.

I like "jokes" that also serve as gotchas

[Ed Oscuro]

oh fer fuck's sake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... mulator%29

where's IAR when you need it

[Xyga]

New, noisy neighbours.

The ones upstairs moved-in weeks ago but they sound like they're rearranging the furniture every night.

The ones downstairs just moved in with... two babies, who seem to think they have to take turns in crying and wailing, like they wanted to make sure the racket never stops.

If only I could find a stable job at the countryside and buy an isolated-enough house, deep in the mountains/forest.

*sigh*

[Moniker]

People who leave napkins/tissues/paper towels/etc in public sinks. The trash can is 8 inches away, FFS.

Also, people who turn out the lights in business-place restrooms. You're saving almost no energy, and make my place of micturation creepy for 2-3 seconds. Save the Earth some other way. Honestly.

Can't think of any ass-related complaints, but I had a perfect bowel movement the other day - smooth, fluid, one wipe - and that's a cause for celebration.

[rancor]

one wipe - and that's a cause for celebration.

Prepare for one of those life-changing events:

https://www.dollarshaveclub.com/one-wipe-charlies

I thoroughly endorse these.

[KAI]

Life turning upside-down.

[null1024]

Late game filler in RPGs to boost length. Fuck that shit.

I'm almost done with Tales of the Abyss now. After a hideous buildup where the game is like "this is clearly the final boss" and isn't, the filler kicks in.

I'm going from town to town doing nothing. Literally: get in plane, fly to town [at least they are good enough to give you fast travel now instead of having to actually slowly traverse the map], go meet person, watch cutscene, act upon information to go somewhere else, repeat. For at least the last 2 hours. At one point, there was an actual dungeon to enter and a boss to kill, but that's it.

although, at least visiting all these places got me to upgrade my equipment [Luke's attack went from somewhere in the 400s to over 1000 when I finally got him a good sword, haha], especially since I've had some of this equipped since 10 hours in game ago .

I'd have been fine with the game clocking 30 hours. But noooooo. Gotta eke out those extra 5 hours somehow!

People who leave napkins/tissues/paper towels/etc in public sinks. The trash can is 8 inches away, FFS.

Also, people who turn out the lights in business-place restrooms. You're saving almost no energy, and make my place of micturation creepy for 2-3 seconds. Save the Earth some other way. Honestly.

This and this. It's just depressing.

[Ed Oscuro]

I confess, it was me that turned off the lights. BUT WHY WAS I IN THERE?

This post brought to you by the eBay Seller's Word of the Day:

Origional

[Ji-L87]

People that have shoulder bags/messenger bags hanging down at their ankles. I see you walk with that bag, swinging awkwardly and interfering with every step you take - why not have it higher up? Like, around the hip or slightly above. You can't even reach the bag down there....

[Edmond Dantes]

I confess, it was me that turned off the lights. BUT WHY WAS I IN THERE?

This post brought to you by the eBay Seller's Word of the Day:

Origional

I literally once saw an eBay listing for a paperback edition of Lord of the Rings that the seller assured us "has pages." Why yes, I sure hope a book has pages...

[Eno]

How most modern cars have arrow-shaped headlights with the turn signals positioned at the tip. Always read those wrong, luckily never had accidents when that happened. Still annoys the fuck out of me because of how ambiguous it is.

Also this:

Summer heat, PC temperature rising.

GPU reaching 60ºC while idle, CPU near 45ºC. Breaks my heart.

[null1024]

I literally once saw an eBay listing for a paperback edition of Lord of the Rings that the seller assured us "has pages." Why yes, I sure hope a book has pages...

To be fair, I'd assume the seller meant "has all the pages", but that's still hilarious.

[quash]

If Japan is so concerned about public health, why do the restrooms at train stations have no soap?