Movies and TV Shows

Fridging, it's just plain lazy.

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.

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.

Hearing the exact wrong part of the conversation, and then making a horrific assumption and spinning off into zany misunderstandings instead of, just, "Hey, what did I just hear?"

Whenever the plot entirely revolves on avoidable misunderstandings from character that nothing in the story prevents from having a clarifying chat. It's weak storytelling.

Also whenever the characters don't react to enormous thing A because advancing the story requires them to immediately ask about thing B.

Lastly whenever you end up screaming at the tv "you have enough clues to call for backup" or "enough reason to worry to call 911" yet they proceed alone. Bad writing.

Idiot balling. If your plot hinges on everyone suddenly being incompetent af, having the emotional maturity of a hamster or leaving out key details without reason, you fucking suck at writing

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.

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 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.

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.

"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.

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.

When there's a breakfast table full of food but the protagonist is running late so they only take a bite of toast and then leaves.

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.

Personally I’m super disinterested in plotlines that suddenly shift and have the main female character desperate to reproduce, or happy about falling pregnant unexpectedly, even, perhaps especially, when it’s wildly out of character for her badass self as she’s written, or makes no sense at all given the circumstances.

So obnoxious and overdone. And so very very lazy, because it’s almost never well-written, it’s just pandering nonsense. I straight up stop watching shows that pull that shit.

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.

When there is a computer problem and they call some guy who presses like two keys and fixes it. Or when they type really fast and click a lot of things and then it fixes it.

Because of Hollywood way too many people believe that’s how you actually fix a computer or technology, and then when your boss sees you not clicking or typing that fast, your boss thinks you’re an idiot and don’t know what you’re doing. Thank you, Hollywood for brainwashing people.

The comic relief only character.
No they're not funny, you can't write.

I despise it when a character has had a long arch proving their worthy of what they do, and then it turns out late in the game they're a chosen one or some shit. If you've been successfully fighting monsters for 15 books, going from a moderate combatant to a super mega awesome fucking wizard who wipes out an entire fucking species to save someone then you have proved your badass monster fighting chops, and you don't need to be the chosen one. What made you awesome is that you were a (mostly) normal dude who became amazing through hard work and sacrifice. Now you're just someone the gods chose or whatever and it completely ruins the entire concept of what the character was.

Two of my absolute favorite series of all time just recently did this, and I am devastated.

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.