I'll go first. Mine is the instant knockout drug. Like Dexter's intramuscular injection that causes someone to immediately lose consciousness. Or in the movie Split where there's the aerosol spray in your face that makes you instantly unconscious. Or pretty much any time someone uses chloroform.
When the driver of a car is looking more at the passenger they’re talking to than the road. Probably a dead giveaway that the scene is shot with green screen or the car being towed on the back of a truck.
Rightful heirs and similar shit. I hate this monarchist propaganda with a passion.
For all the faults of the final seasons of Game of Thrones, I appreciated that this was the consistent message in the novels and show: beware powerful men and women, and those who aspire to be, because your interests are not their interests. The government formed at the end of the show was basically the least-worst option available in a feudal society.
I despise the “flashback to a thing that literally happened five minutes ago to make sure you connect that with whatever just happened/is about to happen.”
Total fucking turnoff. I’m here watching the show and I’m not an idiot. Flashback to something last season or a number of episodes ago? Fine. Some people need a reminder. Within the same episode? GTFO of here with that shit.
Most movies and TV shows are created these days with the assumption that people are on their phones at the same time. I mean actual studio notes to that effect when the plot becomes too difficult for the average person to follow when they have it on while they're also watching TikTok.
"you biiig fuckin idiot. You're such a dummy, you need this flash back from 5 minutes ago because you're too stupid to connect the moment otherwise"
I think they expect that you we're yelling at your kids to put down the matches and need to remind you while you're doom scrolling X
The expert who somehow knows all things science and engineering, like they're all just basically the same. Just once I'd like to hear, "I'm an astrophysicist, not a cybersecurity expert. I don't have the first clue where to begin hacking any computer, let alone an alien one that I've never seen before."
Bonus points if the characters have to look for a different solution due to their lack of on-hand expertise in a particular area.
I just saw that in WandaVision. Darcy is an Astrophysicist but was also hacking through various firewalls to get at some secret data.
Explosive decompression in space. It seems to always last forever, suck EVERYTHING out, even if it's a tiny hole through which a giant xenomorph is liquified. The delta P is like one atmosphere, pathetic really.
Then there's noise in space.
I'm sure it been said already but:
The villain who wanted to change society for the better but took it too far (which invariably involves just doing something randomly evil with the implication that their criticisms are now invalidated)
Oh boy, another excuse to link this article!
Wait, the goodies tell us. Wait for Albion. It’ll arrive. Just be patient. Well, Albion is a very old promise… and, whatever the panglossian liberal morality plays we call family entertainment may say, we’re still bloody waiting. At least the villains, unlike Merlin, are trying to kick up a stink about the delay.
"The mentor/parent has to die so that the hero can prove they're self-actualized" or whatever. It's okay for your hero to have living parents, even if their parents are also heroes. I promise your story won't be less interesting if your character's mentor figure survives.
In my tabletop RPG campaigns I always make it a point for my characters to have at least one living parent, and usually two. These games are always so full of haunted orphans whose villages were burned to the ground or whatever.
Well adjusted individuals with a good social/familial network rarely become wandering mercenaries, but it's so refreshing when everyone else is an orphaned lone-wolf prodigy with secret ancestry in the royal family
I dunno, I can pretty easily come up with reasons why events would force someone to venture out into the world. See The Lord of the Rings and also basically every JRPG from the 1990s.
Frodo was an orphan that never quite fit in at Brandy Hall. Some JRPG protagonists are left as fairly blank slates (Crono, Link), while Cecil of Final Fantasy IV was an orphaned prince, in Fire Emblem Marth loses his father and sister at the start if his adventure, and while not strictly a JRPG, Samus was raised by foster parents and was genetically modified to be a super soldier.
Sure, not every game or plot followed the trope, and there are plenty of great examples that break the trend or flesh the story out to carry it well, there's a reason "orphaned chosen one" is a trope in the first place.
It's also just something silly to point out and chuckle over. Sure, there are positive, story compelling reasons for a random commoner to be thrust into extraordinary situations and become a hero of the realm! But there's also little (normal) reason for Bob the Baker to leave his life as a staple of the community with a loving family and steady work to wander the realm facing dangerous monsters and delve into ancient tombs. When you find a way to make the later work, it's amazing, though!
Picking a lock with just one pick. That's not how it works, you need one to apply a rotating force and another one to lift the individual pins. Sometimes shows even get it right in one season and then totally blow it in the next one.
When a story starts to bring in prophecy as part of the writing. As soon as a character does something "because the prophecy speaks of...", I feel that the writers ran out of plausible ideas and use that as a cheap crutch.
Battlestar Galactica was a great show, but they should've skipped that part.
Lazy villain characterization. Someone dresses in black or snarls a lot or is albino or has some physical marker that makes them different from others, therefore they are the villain.
It is almost impossible for a character in a Hollywood film to speak with a Slavic accent and smoke a cigarette without also being some sort of asshole.
Magic computers that can sharpen and enlarge a grainy CCTV frame enough that you can read what people are typing on their phone.
The American president that goes "gee-haw we really need to stop Voldemort so the people of Agrabad can enjoy democracy and human rights!"
The divorced single-parent cop who struggles to make family life work despite being good at solving big scary crime.
The "we just want to do senseless evil for no apparent reason" terrorists
People getting shot with a shitty handgun and they're dead as soon as they hit the ground. Even if its a fatal shot, chances are quite high you're going to die minutes or hours or days later if you make it to a hospital.
People hiding behind cars from bullets. Bullets being shot at the car and somehow not hitting them. Only the engine block could stop most bullets.
People shooting guns in a car and then continuing their conversation...
You would be deaf.
Some romance tropes.
People doing creepy things and it being portrayed as romantic. Like stalking, or not taking no for an answer.
Love triangles. I spend a lot of time with polyamorous people, and would like to see more representation. and not like "a cishet monogamous person's idea". But even if you are monogamous, you can date different people for a bit before going all in on someone.
"Here, I got you this gift." Hands wrapped gift to the recipient. Recipient: "What is it?"
Motherfucker I swear every movie character does this. It's like they've never received a gift before what the hell
When you do this, what do people say? Do they say "Open it!" or do they ever tell you what it is?
What is the point of wrapping the gift if you're just going to tell the person what's inside?
I don't like the expectations around gifts in my culture, I don't like surprises, i despise consumerism, I am a minimalist, and I don't like gifts being wrapped. My friends know this.
Usually my response when someone hands me a wrapped gift is to frown and ask what it is and why they got it for me. The feeling is usually "damn it. How many wage slaves suffered for this thing?" And "ugh, now I have something else that I have to lug around and figure out how to find it a new home where it won't end up in a landfill"
If they want to give me something nice (eg cook me dinner or hand me a flower), its appreciated. But not on some strange cultural expectation or wrapped in a dead tree or uncompostable plastic single use trash.
Normalization of the protagonist using violence before any attempt of diplomacy, without the narrative condemning this action
