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.
Knights getting stabbed with swords through plate armor.
We’re re-watching GoT and were at the Brienne/Jaime fight on the bridge, and I was just yelling at the screen. He’s in rags and she’s in plate, both wielding swords, he doesn’t have a snowballs’ chance in hell if she protects her head and just tackles him. That’s what the fucking armor is for! Coincidentally that also would be way more likely to achieve her goal to subdue but not hurt him.
Moves that need to exposition dump to tell the audience what’s going on. This isn’t radio. If you need to explain everything to me so I can understand what’s going on in the plot, it’s bad story telling. Show, don’t tell.
Writers just toss in some jarringly unrealistic dialogue that people never say IRL to establish characters are siblings.
I heard Outlander is great, but I can’t get past the second episode because the narration pissed me off.
Okay, I get it, it’s based off a novel, but if you’re inserting a monologue to explain what just happened, or foreshadowing what is about to happen, you can just fuck off.
“Little did I know, this blunder would cost me everything” fuck off
“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
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.
Normalization of the protagonist using violence before any attempt of diplomacy, without the narrative condemning this action
Is that not how chloroform works?
According to Quora it takes 5 minutes, with a willing participant.
Anaesthesia that’s injected right before an operation can knock you out in about 30 seconds (and until then you could still struggle, technically speaking), but that’s a thick-ass tube of drugs they’re pumping inside of you. Some vapours from a rag is going to do jack shit.
5 minutes of inhalation
I have two.
When a woman’s child is threatened she goes stupid and hysterical. Like in Lost when she just keeps screaming “my baby!”. Yes parents get highly motivated when their child is in danger but they don’t get stupid and lose agency.
In any setting where rope would be rare and expensive and they just cut the bonds instead of untying them. It’s understandable when time is critical like a prisoner break or the building is on fire. But in a society where someone spent a week making that rope and you just cut it instead of taking 5 min to preserve the rope.
How many shows are you watching which have rope shortening?
Star Trek is awful for this, but this conversation:
Subject Matter Expert: Oh no, the defences are down
Captain: How long do you need to fix them?
SME: Two hours
Captain: You have one
No, motherfucker, the person that you fucking PAY for their expertise on this very subject said it would take two hours!
Management is full of these cunts that think they can just dictate a timeline and have people that actually know their shit dance to their tune.
“Okay so the installer says it’s got nine minutes left, so this step should take about three or four minutes”
Hate to be that guy, but the federation exists in a post-money society. No one gets paid, they do what they do for prestige, pride, adventure, and the good of humanity. Maybe the management believe they can inspire their minions to do better, or maybe the SME’s are so used to that shit that they under promise and over deliver.
SME: “oh no, our defences are down” Captain: “How long do you need to fix them?” SME: (hmm, captain will cut the time in half, it takes about 15 minutes…fuck it…) “Two hours” Captain: “You have one” SME: (Like candy from a baby)
Cue Scotty, Mr “miracle worker”, quadrupling his estimates:
But also if you know anything about engineering, it’s double your expected timeline just in case Shit Happens™️. I can fairly safely predict delivery in two hours. I might be able to deliver in one. Under-promise and over-deliver, or risk vice versa.
I always 7x. Especially if I’m dependent on others
Honestly this happens a lot. Generally people give estimates reflecting other responsibilities when cutting time is possible
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.
Cliffhangers are getting out of control. It used to be that a movie or season would end by wrapping up the story and maybe throw a little teaser in at the end for next season. That’s fine. But it seems like now they just try to stretch out a story or plot for as long as humanly possible.
It has gotten to the point where I will not watch a show until I either know it doesn’t end in a major cliffhanger or the next season is being filmed. Not confirmed, but actively in production.
A good example is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. I’m still mad about that ending, even more so with the next movie being delayed.
I agree with you! Also unhappy to say that cliffhangers might get more common. Movie makers learn they get more sales / rentals / subscriptions with cliffhangers: because then you’re invested & curious & HAVE to see the next one :/ hate it, but that’s capitalism
Not to mention that you really can’t trust the producers to provide a consistently good product. You create a cliffhanger for an otherwise good movie and the sequel just turns out to be garbage. If the show is garbage, at least have the decency to make it garbage from start to finish, Don’t betray long time fans.
Hard to be mad. It was sooo fucking good
I have grown to really fucking hate deus ex machina in any form. Luck is always a factor, but c’mon. It usually comes down to lazy writing and they just couldn’t be assed to come up with an explanation.
I can tolerate it, if it was prefaced earlier.
People do tend to come to the aid of others when they’re needed the most - it happens.
But if a truck comes barrelling towards Jason Vorhees and knocks him into a train, allowing our characters to run away, that’s a hard no.
Not quite a pet peeve, but close. The whole “We’re not in a (movie/show/game/whatever)!” type of dialogue.
That, or cliffhangers that will never be resolved due to the show/movie either being cancelled, discontinued, whatever. Looking at you, Sliders season 5 ending!
I see Sliders mentioned, I cry.
“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.
I’m pretty tired of the sanctity of life trope. Especially when the hero kills a thousand henchmen to get to the villain, and then all of the sudden decides it would be wrong to kill a guy who is trying to destroy the world or whatever.
Also the hostage trope where they point a gun at someone and say “drop your gun” and the hero does so. How fucking stupid are you? Just shoot the guy in the face.
Also major injuries that take a year to recover from, but somehow Mr. Average guy is running around and fighting 2 minutes later.
For that matter, when someone gets shot center mass and they collapse like Cypher just pulled them from the matrix
It’s preferable to people getting shot and flying across the room, like in a John Woo film.