Pet Peeves

[Mistrunner]

6 hours ago, Oversleep said:

While scrolling Facebook, I came upon a comment saying... brace yourselves...

 

*slowly looks down at plate of nachos*

[Sunbird she/her]

@Oversleep Welp. I guess a certain local chain of ice cream shops had better shut down now... They make the ice cream in front of you using liquid nitrogen. XD

[Assassin in Burgundy he/him]

My biggest pet peeve is when I mention Brandon Sanderson, and the ask, "Who's that?"

My. Head. Explodes.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Assassin in Burgundy

[Straw he/him]

3 hours ago, Sunbird said:

@Oversleep Welp. I guess a certain local chain of ice cream shops had better shut down now... They make the ice cream in front of you using liquid nitrogen. XD

I love that place.

[Sunbird she/her]

When my car's sun visor can't properly do its job of keeping the sun out of my eyes because I'm too short.

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

Every time I see the photo of this guy (I see it so often, omg):

And someone calls him a falcon. 

Seriously this photo is even like top google image search result for the world falcon" But this bird is obviously a type of hawk, common buzzard prossibly. 

And falcons are so easy to recognise from all the other Birds of Prey.. Omg. Such a pet peeve of mine.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Pestis the Spider
Hiding the photo

[Stick. she/her]

When I *try* to bring up Brandon Sanderson in a conversation and some dumb fella goes like "I didn't know Brandon Saunders wrote fantasy books" facepalm 

[Sunbird she/her]

@Pestis the Spider As a bird enthusiast, this bugs me too. I don't know with certainty specifically what kind of hawk that is, but it's definitely a hawk and not a falcon. (It looks like possibly a Ferruginous Hawk, a type that can be found in the western USA.) Similarly, I get irritated when my grandma says she saw a Blue Jay. We live in Utah, where there are no Blue Jays because they live in the eastern USA. Out here we have Western Scrub Jays. 

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

@Sunbird Yeah, I also think it's most probably a Buteo hawk (in UK we call them buzzards, but I know that in US they're called hawks and buzzards are something else) rather than Accipiter hawk. Although I think it's might be a common buzzard (Buteo buteo, I have no idea how you call it in US), because Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis)  seems to be more pretty with some silver feathers here and there. But I've never seen one IRL so I am completely unsure. 

I even saw this picture being described as "falcon" on the juice (the juice box had an "interesting fact" section). It's everywhere, seriously.

And while I was thinking about buzzards to write this comment I decided to google some pretty pictures of Jackal Buzzard (my favourite buzzard, it has such amazing colours). And there, on the first page I see a photo of... lanner falcon described as "Jackal buzzard eating a Dove in South Africa" (I would post it here, but there is some pidgeon gore there, so maybe better not). I mean, c'mon. Falcons look more like parrots than buzzards, for all things sake. O.o

Sorry, but I am just really fascinated by Birds of Prey.  

Edit: I added the latin names, so that everyone can understand me, no mather what's the common name for a given bird.
Edit2: I mistaken a lanner falcon for peregrine falcon for a moment. Oops, my bad. 

Edited August 22, 2016 by Pestis the Spider

[Sunbird she/her]

@Pestis the Spider I haven't ever seen a Ferruginous in person either; I was just taking a guess based on the pictures in my field guide to North American birds. It's really difficult to get an accurate ID when the photo only shows the bird's head. Keeps you from telling its relative size or seeing other helpful markings.

I looked up Buteo buteo and apparently it isn't found in North America, but we have several other Buteo hawks over here, the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) being by far the most common. We have some from the Accipiter genus too.

As you can probably tell, I also love birds of prey.  I looked up the Lanner falcon and I can see how you could confuse it for a peregrine, but as you stated I find it rather baffling that people can see a falcon and not know that it is a falcon. Falcons all have that dark "mustache" marking on their faces to reduce glare from the sun when they're hunting. I think it makes them look like they're wearing war paint--in other words, totally badchull!

In other news, I was rather miffed at the public library today... They had all the fiction books by different authors with the same last name jumbled together on the shelf. May God have mercy on the soul of anyone looking for a book by someone named Smith!

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

@Sunbird To be honest as far as I know the only difference between common buzzard and red-tailed hawk (we call him red-tailed buzzard over here) is that the red-tailed hawk has red tail feathers while common buzzard has brown tail feathers. Other than that they are almost identical, so I doubt anyone would be able to distinguish them just by head.

Another pet peeve of mine: When extroverts assume that I am also an extrovert.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

The Lost Lenore in stories. Cursed Child made me realize just how very much that trope annoys me. (Not a spoiler; it happens close to the beginning of the play and I won't say who just in case.) If a woman is such a wonderful partner, parent, mother and friend, don't kill her off just so the hero can gush about how wonderful she was. Let her be wonderful in the present. And no, don't try to use flashbacks to get around that. Let her live and let her be awesome. 

There are rare occasions where this can work (the trope namer, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" comes to mind), but in most works where I've seen it, the trope comes across as a means for lazy writers to avoid having to develop and give story space to a female character, while giving them an easy way to convince the audience to sympathize with the main character. Win-win for the writer, maybe, but don't tease me with an awesome heroine I'll never get to meet.  

[Sunbird she/her]

When I'm listening to a Dream Theater playlist on YouTube and YouTube decides that putting an unskippable ad full of loud, obnoxious, indecipherable rap "music" at the beginning of the next video is something I'll enjoy.

Spoiler

People who drive smack down the center of a two-way aisle in the parking lot. Other people need to get past too, slontze.

[Orlion Blight he/him]

That "Special Kind of Stupid" meme. In fact, at the risk of implicating myself:

Spoiler

 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Another pet peeve from the world of literature: 

The world is saved by the power of love! And what of the couple at the epicenter? Are they in their eighties? Have they been married so long that they finish each others' sentences, order for each other in restaurants, and still do silly things like go to the local park and push each other on the swingset? No! Silly moo, it was saved by two teenagers who have known each other maybe three days!  

Just once, I'd like to see an adorable elderly couple save the world with the power of love. 

[Quiver he/him]

3 hours ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Another pet peeve from the world of literature: 

The world is saved by the power of love! And what of the couple at the epicenter? Are they in their eighties? Have they been married so long that they finish each others' sentences, order for each other in restaurants, and still do silly things like go to the local park and push each other on the swingset? No! Silly moo, it was saved by two teenagers who have known each other maybe three days!  

Just once, I'd like to see an adorable elderly couple save the world with the power of love. 

... That is actually kind of brilliant.

Not the elderly, the teenager thing. Of course two teens who just met each other can save the world; love does incredible tings and feels amazing!

...it's also really hard, and a stable, long-term relationship can be tough. So the couple breaks up, so the world is in danger again because politics and cultures and problems can't be solved by superficial fluff and good intentions alone, so you bring in the next couple.

Cycle repeats.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Quiver

[Delightful]

10 hours ago, Quiver said:

... That is actually kind of brilliant.

Not the elderly, the teenager thing. Of course two teens who just met each other can save the world; love does incredible tings and feels amazing!

...it's also really hard, and a stable, long-term relationship can be tough. So the couple breaks up, so the world is in danger again because politics and cultures and problems can't be solved by superficial fluff and good intentions alone, so you bring in the next couple.

Cycle repeats.

Ooooh, I like. And the story centres around a couple who're like in their 20's and they're like "But we're too old to save the world! Only teenagers can do that!"

Or maybe they're part of lore. The Older Couple who saved the world a hundred years ago, and the peace lasted longer then, but tradition says it has to be teenagers dang it. 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Just now, Delightful said:

Ooooh, I like. And the story centres around a couple who're like in their 20's and they're like "But we're too old to save the world! Only teenagers can do that!"

Or maybe they're part of lore. The Older Couple who saved the world a hundred years ago, and the peace lasted longer then, but tradition says it has to be teenagers dang it. 

Plot twist: It's not a couple at all who actually saves the world this time, but a fat kid with no significant other to speak of. 

He really loves his chocolate cake.  

[Delightful]

1 minute ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

Plot twist: It's not a couple at all who actually saves the world this time, but a fat kid with no significant other to speak of. 

He really loves his chocolate cake.  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And he bakes his own cake. Because no one else can quite get it right. The plot involves a quest to find rare ingredients.

No wait: His grandmother is the Old Mentor who dies halfway through who teaches him to make cake. She never told him where she got the ingredients from before, she takes him on her travels this time so that he can learn where to find the ingredients and take over her cake making business.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Delightful

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

But he hates his grandmother for forcing him to travel, so he creates a robotic doppelganger to do the traveling for him

[Delightful]

4 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

But he hates his grandmother for forcing him to travel, so he creates a robotic doppelganger to do the traveling for him

But then how does he protag*? 

 

*Yes that that is the verb form of protagonist  

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

13 hours ago, Delightful said:

But then how does he protag*? 

 

*Yes that that is the verb form of protagonist  

He mentally controls the robot safely from a distance

[Sunbird she/her]

When the toaster spits my toast out overdone even when I use the lowest setting. #firstworldproblems

[Orlion Blight he/him]

9 minutes ago, Sunbird said:

When the toaster spits my toast out overdone even when I use the lowest setting. #firstworldproblems

Might need a little cleaning. My toaster did that recently, and now after I cleaned it, it's better.

[Sunbird she/her]

@Orlion Determined How would you advise cleaning it? I don't want to disassemble it, but I'm not sure how else to access the inside of the bread slots.